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The first time they were brought before their captors was the last time the four of them were taken into the room together.
At first, they weren’t even sure they hadn’t stumbled into the featureless room by accident.
“Hello?” Daniel called, echoed by Jack’s sing-song “Hell-oo-ooo!”
“This doesn’t seem like a particularly helpful place to explore,” Daniel mused. “But, I keep thinking we need to we need to be here.”
A puff of scented air wafted past them.
“Yeah, I think we need to sit tight,” Jack said slowly, dropping the barrel of his P90, looping it over his head, and sitting it on the also-featureless floor. Sam was doing likewise, while Teal’c was gently laying his staff weapon down.
“Um, guys?” Daniel said, also absently loosening and removing the holster for his Beretta. “Does this seem right?”
“No. I mean yes. I mean, it’s what they want,” Sam said. The scent continued to play about them in the room, as each member of SG-1 removed tac vest, holster, weapons, and packs.
When it was all over, they marched as if led to a pair of cells.
***
They separated as if herded into two in each cell; Sam and Teal’c in one, and Jack and Daniel in another. The cells, like the room they had been in, were featureless, except the ambient lighting was not as bright, and one wall of each cell was made of a long and continuous waterfall, with enough troughs and enough movement that it was easy enough to designate one end upstream and one downstream; one area each for drinking, bathing, and eliminating. The water was cool and tasted fresh, so Jack permitted them to partake once they had tested it slowly.
They had little choice. Their captors, if, indeed captors there were, seemed to have examined them without understanding what parts were clothing and what were living being. They all kept black undershirts, fatigue pants, and boots. Jack had his baseball cap and IFAK. Daniel had his glasses and his holster, but no weapon. Teal’c had his tac vest, which luckily held his supply of tretonin and a small but deadly-looking knife. Sam had four power bars and the pack she had been carrying, but no other pack contents.
Sam took out the power bars, sliding Jack and Daniel’s across the floor to the neighboring cell.
“I’m guessing we’re probably on our own for food. Here we test the theory that it’s better to be fed while you are still fresh and have the best chance for escape.”
Jack munched on his bar thoughtfully.
***
They knew their captors were trying to feed them, because a change in the scent of the air made them sure that they would be offered food. The scent was accompanied by music that played for several minutes, then died away with the scent.
“I think they communicate by smell,” Daniel said. “If that’s the case, it might indicate a system that uses basic humanoid senses in completely different ways than we do. Maybe they think the music was food.”
“If music be the food of love,” Jack recited.
“How literate of you,” Daniel snarked.
“May I remind you that I did actually have to graduate from the Academy, not just attend it,” he threw back in an uncharacteristic defense. “Besides, we clearly can’t eat music. You’re the communication guy. Communicate with them. Explain that we need actual food.”
“Yeah, verbal communication, Jack. I’m not sure how many different smells I can possibly make, and I have no idea what they would mean.”
“I don’t know, Daniel,” Jack said. “You were communicating pretty clearly that night we shared a tent after you had the chili dog MRE.”
***
At first they were taken in pairs and subjected to basic tests. Sam and Teal’c were taken to perform physical tests, like jumping and reaching. Jack and Daniel were taken for tests involving balls and colors and one that required matching objects up close with the same object far away. At that session, Daniel’s glasses were taken, and he returned with Jack, squinting at the physical food they had finally been provided.
“I think I’m just as happy I can’t see it,” he said. “Because I’m fairly sure this is what a urinal mint tastes like.”
***
By week two, the tests turned darker. One day, Teal’c and Sam returned to their cell in silence, Teal’c radiating disquiet and Sam blinking back tears as she adjusted her t-shirt.
“T?” Jack called.
“It seems, O’Neill, that our captors have taken an interest in biological sex, if, indeed, they understand the concept.”
“Carter?” Jack said worriedly.
Sam straightened her spine while still keeping partially turned away from the front of their cell. “I’m fine, sir.”
“Carter,” Jack stated. It wasn’t a question. Sam turned to look at him.
“They didn’t rape us, sir. Or make us rape each other.”
Jack gave her a long look that turned soft at the end and said quietly, “Carter. You and I are the only ones really in the Air Force command structure here. I wasn’t there. The only thing I will ever know is whatever you put in your report.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam replied. “Thank you, sir.”
***
The next day, Jack and Daniel were ordered out of their cell by the scent in the air. When they came back, Jack was carrying most of Daniel’s weight by his arm looped over Jack’s shoulder. Daniel could clearly put no weight on his left leg.
Jack helped him into the cell and helped him lie down on the pallets that their captors had finally provided, perhaps after enough viewing of the four attempting to bed down on the hard cell floors with strategic rolls of clothing acting as scanty blankets and pillows. As was now their custom, Daniel reported on his and Jack’s time away from the cell, his voice tight with pain.
“At least they now know that knees only bend one way.”
***
That night, Daniel lay on his pallet, trying to stifle occasional gasps of pain as Jack periodically went back and forth, wetting a torn-off piece of his t-shirt in the water and returning to use it to cool off Daniel’s increasingly swollen knee.
“Daniel? Is there something Teal’c and I can do?”
“Figure out a way to get us out of here?” Daniel said tightly.
“I still have my IFAK,” Jack said. “There’s one shot of morphine in there.”
“No,” Daniel said. “Save it for when we get out of here and have to walk five klicks to the gate,” lying painfully back on the pallet.
***
The rotation continued, this time with both pairs going grimly to the experiment chamber, as they had started calling it. Sam and Teal’c moved as slowly as the compelling scent would allow them, looking for weaknesses in the cells or passageway that could only be seen from outside the cells.
Jack had his hands full hauling Daniel to the chamber, even with Daniel painfully trying to walk on his broken knee in response to the scent. Every time they returned, Daniel was a shade more grey than before, his lips pressed together, knuckles white where he held onto Jack. As soon as they reentered their cell, Jack would recommence wiping the sweat that beaded on Daniel’s brow and laying cool cloths on his knee while he stifled moans.
***
The next time Jack and Daniel were called to the chamber, Daniel could hardly move without pain. His knee was swollen to the point at which Jack had slit his BDU pants to allow it room, and he was running a low fever. Nonetheless, he hopped and dragged himself toward the chamber, leaning heavily on Jack and crying out with every step.
Shortly, Sam and Teal’c were summoned to the chamber. Looking questioningly at one another, they proceeded. When they arrived, Daniel was lying on the floor on his side, gripping his left thigh and making those terrible gasps and cries they had almost grown accustomed to. A look at his knee showed a gleam of bone and rivulets of blood coming from broken skin.
Before Sam could drop to her knees to assist with whatever first aid she could manage, the wall of the chamber split and opened to the outside, and the scent ushered them out and pushed them away from the building. The four moved as quickly as they could with Daniel suspended between Jack and Teal’c, until they were sure they were at least a klick away from their jail with four to go to the Stargate.
“Jack,” said Daniel. “I’ll take that morphine now.”
***
At the SGC, Janet led Jack, Sam, and Teal’c down the corridor to the private rooms after their physicals. “You all are fine, if a bit dehydrated and malnourished. I want you to stay on base for a couple of days until we make sure your electrolytes are back in balance and you have no lingering side effects.”
“You bet we are,” Jack boomed, perhaps unnecessarily loudly. “We’re staying with Daniel.”
Janet nodded. “I thought as much, so I had some cots brought in,” she said as she swung open the door. Daniel was lying in bed, blue scrubs intensifying the dark circles under his eyes, but the furrows of pain in his brow nearly gone. His left leg was wrapped, padded, and braced, and he smiled at them groggily.
“He made it through surgery just fine,” Janet said. “The break was comminuted, but not so far out of place that it was impossible to repair. It will take a lot of physical therapy, but he’ll be going through the gate with you again.”
After Janet checked Daniel over and excused herself for other patients, Daniel looked up at his friends.
“It was the blood,” he said.
“Is this the anesthesia talking?” Jack snarked.
“No, Jack,” Daniel said, sounding much more himself than he had in days. “The blood was the scent, the communication. I don’t know if it was the iron or what, but once my fracture became compound, it was like they realized they had broken their toy and wanted to distance themselves.”
Sam shook her head, and Jack finally cracked a smile. “We do not require a request of any type to stand by you as you heal, DanielJackson,” Teal’c said, as the three headed to their cots to rest and be near their friend.