(no subject)
Title: Down Here Among the Wreckage
Author: Annerb
Summary: Five years ago, SG-1 broke in half. Two years ago, Earth lost. Today, there is one last chance to fix things. But sometimes the pieces just don’t fit back together again.
Warnings: Mature for language, violence, torture, non-con, adult themes, and some temporal meandering.
Categorization: AU, H/C, darkfic, tragedy, and apocafic for flavor. Team, Sam/Jack.
A/N: Special thanks to
la_tante for the beta.
Part One: History
Prologue
Fragments
All Fall Down
Two days after Sam disappears for the second time, Hammond orders her lab packed up. That’s when Daniel forces himself to go in there one last time. Driven by the thought of near strangers digging through her things, he gathers together her personal items himself, packing them away into a box.
He’ll hold on to them until she wants them again.
Sliding open the bottom drawer on her desk, he finds only one item sitting pristinely in the center. It’s a letter of resignation, neatly typed and signed.
The ordered words and calm rationalizations on the form should be comforting. It’s proof that there is enough of Sam left that she felt the need to properly resign, to leave things neat and clean behind her. But all Daniel sees is the permanence of it, how carefully she severed all ties before she left.
She’s really not coming back.
The days leech into weeks, a full month passing with no news, no sign. Sam’s lab is empty now. It won’t be long until Hammond is forced to reassign the space, fill it with the work of someone new. The SGC is moving on, firmly relegating Sam and Jack to the past.
But Daniel is still here, sitting in the empty darkness of Sam’s abandoned space, trying to reconcile himself to a truth he can’t quite accept.
It’s just a room, he tries to remind himself.
“Daniel Jackson.”
Daniel doesn’t look up from the desk at the sound of Teal’c’s voice. “I don’t understand why she couldn’t stay.”
And maybe that is the crux of his impasse. Unlike Jack, Sam had the option to stay, to still be here with them. Her departure was completely of her own choosing.
“She has done what she believed necessary,” Teal’c says. “As her friends, we must accept that.”
“And move on?” Daniel asks bitterly.
“We too will do what we must,” Teal’c says, as always, playing the stoic warrior. Just as Jack and Sam would want him to.
Daniel can’t hate him for that.
“Bra’tac has asked to see us. We must prepare to depart.”
Reluctantly, Daniel pushes to his feet, following Teal’c out into the hall. In the doorway, he pauses, looking back into the empty space, doing what he must.
He pulls the door shut.
It still feels wrong, stepping through the gate with only Teal’c by his side. Daniel knows there is a stack of personnel files on Hammond’s desk as he searches for replacements. SG-1 won’t be left skeletal much longer.
There’s no more room on the premiere unit for ghosts.
Bra’tac is there to greet them when they step through to Chulak.
“You have brought the items I requested?” he asks of Teal’c.
“Yes,” Teal’c says, pulling a file out of his vest.
Daniel peers at it, confused, his heart climbing into his throat when Bra’tac flips it open to reveal a photograph of Jack.
“What’s going on?” Daniel demands, curiosity about this visit belatedly flaring into life.
Bra’tac and Teal’c share a look Daniel can’t quite interpret, but it grinds against his skin, putting him on edge.
“We have captured a Jaffa believed to be a spy,” Bra’tac explains, his words careful, almost practiced. “He was caught stealing supplies from a rebel camp on Rhodos. His name is Jatal, and he was once First Prime to a minor Goa’uld called Anhur.”
Daniel nods along, automatically filing the information away, but still unclear as to its significance. “What does this have to do with Jack?”
Teal’c and Bra’tac share yet another look, and Daniel realizes that they somehow fear his reaction to this information.
“Under interrogation,” Bra’tac continues, “he boasted of his master’s accomplishments, including his capture of the fabled Tau’ri warriors.”
Teal’c looks displeased by such tasteless boasting, but all Daniel can latch onto are the implications for Jack and Sam. “Are you saying this Anhur is the Goa’uld who captured Jack and Sam?”
“This is what we endeavor to discover,” Teal’c says.
Bra’tac gestures for them to start down the path toward the training camps, falling into step next to them. “I have had Jatal brought here. We will question him ourselves.”
Daniel’s brain is running on overdrive as they walk, wading through all the possibilities this new discovery reveals. By the time they finally reach the tents, he has it fairly well crystallized in his mind.
“Teal’c,” he says, grabbing his arm before they enter. “Let me do the questioning.”
Daniel has always been able to get people to talk about anything, knows he can use his lowly human status as a way to goad the Jaffa into revealing too much, if his boasting is any sign of his arrogance. He can do this. Even more, he needs to do this.
Daniel gets the feeling that Teal’c is somehow pleased with the request. He nods, handing Daniel the file. “As you wish.”
Daniel looks down to see a picture of Sam in the folder as well. It’s finally time for answers, for the story that has been eluding them for so long.
Following Bra’tac into a tent, Daniel gets his first look at the captured Jaffa. Jatal can only be described as scruffy. His hair is long and wild, face covered with a partially grown beard, armor patched and dull.
Daniel isn’t sure he’s ever seen a Jaffa quite this unkempt before, not even in the heat of battle. He doesn’t so much look like a spy as a hermit, someone living on barest levels of subsistence to judge by the gauntness of his features. Only the bright glint of his gold tattoo speaks to the high position he must have once held.
“We wish to know if you have ever seen this woman,” Daniel says, holding out the photo of Sam.
Jatal seems surprised that Daniel is questioning him rather than one of the Jaffa, his eyes glittering dangerously. “I will not be addressed by this human.”
“You speak as if you have a great many choices in front of you, Jaffa,” Bra’tac says, his voice calm despite the unspoken threat underlying it.
When Jatal swallows his rage and drops his eyes to the floor, Daniel realizes that Bra’tac has likely said or done something to ensure the Jaffa’s cooperation. At this point, Daniel doesn’t really care as long as he will speak.
“The woman,” Daniel repeats.
Jatal’s eyes lift, looking at the photo. “Yes,” he says. “She was a prisoner of my master.”
“Anhur,” Daniel says in confirmation.
Jatal seems to take umbrage that a mere human would dare speak his god’s name, but nods nonetheless, the gesture stiff, angry.
“Was,” Daniel repeats, purposively layering the word with the slightest edge of a sneer. “She escaped, didn’t she?”
The Jaffa scoffs. “She did not escape. I made her go through the chappa’ai.”
“Are you trying to say that you…rescued her?”
Jatal’s eyes widen as if Daniel has just accused him of being a shol’va. “I did not,” he says, his voice tight. “I merely sent her away. Her welfare was not of my concern.”
Daniel’s eyes dart to Teal’c. He hadn’t expected to hear this.
“Did Anhur order you to do this?” Teal’c asks, taking a step closer.
Jatal shifts with what Daniel would call embarrassment if he hadn’t been a Jaffa. “No,” he admits. “He did not.”
“Then why did you do it?” Teal’c presses. “You must have known it would mean banishment.”
“I did it in service of my god,” he snarls. “His obsession with her was destroying him. He lost two planets in the time he was with her, nearly half his territory! She would have been the end of him.”
“You could have just killed her,” Daniel observes with more calm than he feels, because something here still doesn’t feel quite right. “But instead, you delivered her to the home of the resistance.”
The Jaffa growls, but eventually drops Daniels’s gaze. “She showed an admirable amount of courage,” he admits with grudging respect. “I do not believe I heard her beg once, even with everything that was done to her.”
It’s the first confirmation of what Sam endured during her absence. Daniel feels bile rising on the back of his tongue.
“She was tortured?” Bra’tac asks.
“Quite extensively,” Jatal confirms.
Daniel walks a few paces away under the guise of pulling his canteen out of his pack. He takes a long drink, trying to disguise how unsettled he is. It’s nearly impossible to listen to such a cavalier description of what Sam endured, especially from someone who had just stood by and watched it happen, or worse, participated.
Bra’tac clears his throat. “And were there any other prisoners? Someone who perhaps came in with Major Carter?”
“Just the ha'shak,” Jatal says with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“This man?” Teal’c asks, passing him a photo of Jack.
“That was him,” he confirms with a nod, his eyes sliding off the photo as if reluctant to look upon it. It’s a strange reaction to something he seemed so blasé about only moments before.
Daniel doesn’t miss Jatal’s use of the past tense.
Bra’tac reaches out, grabbing the Jaffa’s shoulder. “What became of him?” he demands.
The Jaffa is confused by their interest in something he obviously finds trivial. “He was… terac shri.”
The words ripple through the tent, neither Bra’tac nor Teal’c quite able to hide their reactions.
“Oblivion,” Daniel automatically translates, staring keenly at Teal’c. He isn’t clear on the significance of the term. He turns to Bra’tac, who is visibly shaken. “What does that mean? That Jack is…dead?”
“No,” Bra’tac says, not taking his eyes from Anhur’s Jaffa. His tone implies that whatever terac shri means, it is much worse than death.
Teal’c turns, walking until he is staring out the opening of the tent, like he can’t speak the words while looking at them. “Terac shri refers to the destruction of a host’s soul in the moment of blending.”
There’s a faint buzzing in Daniel’s ears as he stares at Teal’c’s back, trying to reconcile the words.
“Are you saying that Jack is…?” Daniel trails off, not quite able to speak the words.
Teal’c turns to look at him. “O’Neill is Anhur.”
Blindly, Daniel gropes for the nearest chair, lowering himself into it. He glances at Bra’tac, hoping for disagreement perhaps, but the Jaffa Master only nods in confirmation.
“It is a great gift,” Jatal remarks, but Daniel doesn’t have any room to spare his misguided words a thought.
“For such a minor Goa’uld, taking one of the hated Tau’ri rebels as host would have been too much to resist,” Bra’tac surmises in a strangely detached voice. “Used wisely, he could exploit it to great advantage with the System Lords, perhaps increase his influence and power.”
The idea of Jack O’Neill’s knowledge and abilities in the hands of a Goa’uld, minor or not, is grim as hell.
That’s when it finally all slams together in Daniel’s mind, the understanding shuddering into place. Whatever Sam suffered, she would have suffered at the hands of Jack.
Daniel’s eyes latch onto Teal’c, a beat of understanding between them.
At least now they have a pretty good idea where Sam went.
Next Chapter
Author: Annerb
Summary: Five years ago, SG-1 broke in half. Two years ago, Earth lost. Today, there is one last chance to fix things. But sometimes the pieces just don’t fit back together again.
Warnings: Mature for language, violence, torture, non-con, adult themes, and some temporal meandering.
Categorization: AU, H/C, darkfic, tragedy, and apocafic for flavor. Team, Sam/Jack.
A/N: Special thanks to
la_tante for the beta.
Part One: History
Prologue
Fragments
All Fall Down
Two days after Sam disappears for the second time, Hammond orders her lab packed up. That’s when Daniel forces himself to go in there one last time. Driven by the thought of near strangers digging through her things, he gathers together her personal items himself, packing them away into a box.
He’ll hold on to them until she wants them again.
Sliding open the bottom drawer on her desk, he finds only one item sitting pristinely in the center. It’s a letter of resignation, neatly typed and signed.
The ordered words and calm rationalizations on the form should be comforting. It’s proof that there is enough of Sam left that she felt the need to properly resign, to leave things neat and clean behind her. But all Daniel sees is the permanence of it, how carefully she severed all ties before she left.
She’s really not coming back.
The days leech into weeks, a full month passing with no news, no sign. Sam’s lab is empty now. It won’t be long until Hammond is forced to reassign the space, fill it with the work of someone new. The SGC is moving on, firmly relegating Sam and Jack to the past.
But Daniel is still here, sitting in the empty darkness of Sam’s abandoned space, trying to reconcile himself to a truth he can’t quite accept.
It’s just a room, he tries to remind himself.
“Daniel Jackson.”
Daniel doesn’t look up from the desk at the sound of Teal’c’s voice. “I don’t understand why she couldn’t stay.”
And maybe that is the crux of his impasse. Unlike Jack, Sam had the option to stay, to still be here with them. Her departure was completely of her own choosing.
“She has done what she believed necessary,” Teal’c says. “As her friends, we must accept that.”
“And move on?” Daniel asks bitterly.
“We too will do what we must,” Teal’c says, as always, playing the stoic warrior. Just as Jack and Sam would want him to.
Daniel can’t hate him for that.
“Bra’tac has asked to see us. We must prepare to depart.”
Reluctantly, Daniel pushes to his feet, following Teal’c out into the hall. In the doorway, he pauses, looking back into the empty space, doing what he must.
He pulls the door shut.
It still feels wrong, stepping through the gate with only Teal’c by his side. Daniel knows there is a stack of personnel files on Hammond’s desk as he searches for replacements. SG-1 won’t be left skeletal much longer.
There’s no more room on the premiere unit for ghosts.
Bra’tac is there to greet them when they step through to Chulak.
“You have brought the items I requested?” he asks of Teal’c.
“Yes,” Teal’c says, pulling a file out of his vest.
Daniel peers at it, confused, his heart climbing into his throat when Bra’tac flips it open to reveal a photograph of Jack.
“What’s going on?” Daniel demands, curiosity about this visit belatedly flaring into life.
Bra’tac and Teal’c share a look Daniel can’t quite interpret, but it grinds against his skin, putting him on edge.
“We have captured a Jaffa believed to be a spy,” Bra’tac explains, his words careful, almost practiced. “He was caught stealing supplies from a rebel camp on Rhodos. His name is Jatal, and he was once First Prime to a minor Goa’uld called Anhur.”
Daniel nods along, automatically filing the information away, but still unclear as to its significance. “What does this have to do with Jack?”
Teal’c and Bra’tac share yet another look, and Daniel realizes that they somehow fear his reaction to this information.
“Under interrogation,” Bra’tac continues, “he boasted of his master’s accomplishments, including his capture of the fabled Tau’ri warriors.”
Teal’c looks displeased by such tasteless boasting, but all Daniel can latch onto are the implications for Jack and Sam. “Are you saying this Anhur is the Goa’uld who captured Jack and Sam?”
“This is what we endeavor to discover,” Teal’c says.
Bra’tac gestures for them to start down the path toward the training camps, falling into step next to them. “I have had Jatal brought here. We will question him ourselves.”
Daniel’s brain is running on overdrive as they walk, wading through all the possibilities this new discovery reveals. By the time they finally reach the tents, he has it fairly well crystallized in his mind.
“Teal’c,” he says, grabbing his arm before they enter. “Let me do the questioning.”
Daniel has always been able to get people to talk about anything, knows he can use his lowly human status as a way to goad the Jaffa into revealing too much, if his boasting is any sign of his arrogance. He can do this. Even more, he needs to do this.
Daniel gets the feeling that Teal’c is somehow pleased with the request. He nods, handing Daniel the file. “As you wish.”
Daniel looks down to see a picture of Sam in the folder as well. It’s finally time for answers, for the story that has been eluding them for so long.
Following Bra’tac into a tent, Daniel gets his first look at the captured Jaffa. Jatal can only be described as scruffy. His hair is long and wild, face covered with a partially grown beard, armor patched and dull.
Daniel isn’t sure he’s ever seen a Jaffa quite this unkempt before, not even in the heat of battle. He doesn’t so much look like a spy as a hermit, someone living on barest levels of subsistence to judge by the gauntness of his features. Only the bright glint of his gold tattoo speaks to the high position he must have once held.
“We wish to know if you have ever seen this woman,” Daniel says, holding out the photo of Sam.
Jatal seems surprised that Daniel is questioning him rather than one of the Jaffa, his eyes glittering dangerously. “I will not be addressed by this human.”
“You speak as if you have a great many choices in front of you, Jaffa,” Bra’tac says, his voice calm despite the unspoken threat underlying it.
When Jatal swallows his rage and drops his eyes to the floor, Daniel realizes that Bra’tac has likely said or done something to ensure the Jaffa’s cooperation. At this point, Daniel doesn’t really care as long as he will speak.
“The woman,” Daniel repeats.
Jatal’s eyes lift, looking at the photo. “Yes,” he says. “She was a prisoner of my master.”
“Anhur,” Daniel says in confirmation.
Jatal seems to take umbrage that a mere human would dare speak his god’s name, but nods nonetheless, the gesture stiff, angry.
“Was,” Daniel repeats, purposively layering the word with the slightest edge of a sneer. “She escaped, didn’t she?”
The Jaffa scoffs. “She did not escape. I made her go through the chappa’ai.”
“Are you trying to say that you…rescued her?”
Jatal’s eyes widen as if Daniel has just accused him of being a shol’va. “I did not,” he says, his voice tight. “I merely sent her away. Her welfare was not of my concern.”
Daniel’s eyes dart to Teal’c. He hadn’t expected to hear this.
“Did Anhur order you to do this?” Teal’c asks, taking a step closer.
Jatal shifts with what Daniel would call embarrassment if he hadn’t been a Jaffa. “No,” he admits. “He did not.”
“Then why did you do it?” Teal’c presses. “You must have known it would mean banishment.”
“I did it in service of my god,” he snarls. “His obsession with her was destroying him. He lost two planets in the time he was with her, nearly half his territory! She would have been the end of him.”
“You could have just killed her,” Daniel observes with more calm than he feels, because something here still doesn’t feel quite right. “But instead, you delivered her to the home of the resistance.”
The Jaffa growls, but eventually drops Daniels’s gaze. “She showed an admirable amount of courage,” he admits with grudging respect. “I do not believe I heard her beg once, even with everything that was done to her.”
It’s the first confirmation of what Sam endured during her absence. Daniel feels bile rising on the back of his tongue.
“She was tortured?” Bra’tac asks.
“Quite extensively,” Jatal confirms.
Daniel walks a few paces away under the guise of pulling his canteen out of his pack. He takes a long drink, trying to disguise how unsettled he is. It’s nearly impossible to listen to such a cavalier description of what Sam endured, especially from someone who had just stood by and watched it happen, or worse, participated.
Bra’tac clears his throat. “And were there any other prisoners? Someone who perhaps came in with Major Carter?”
“Just the ha'shak,” Jatal says with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“This man?” Teal’c asks, passing him a photo of Jack.
“That was him,” he confirms with a nod, his eyes sliding off the photo as if reluctant to look upon it. It’s a strange reaction to something he seemed so blasé about only moments before.
Daniel doesn’t miss Jatal’s use of the past tense.
Bra’tac reaches out, grabbing the Jaffa’s shoulder. “What became of him?” he demands.
The Jaffa is confused by their interest in something he obviously finds trivial. “He was… terac shri.”
The words ripple through the tent, neither Bra’tac nor Teal’c quite able to hide their reactions.
“Oblivion,” Daniel automatically translates, staring keenly at Teal’c. He isn’t clear on the significance of the term. He turns to Bra’tac, who is visibly shaken. “What does that mean? That Jack is…dead?”
“No,” Bra’tac says, not taking his eyes from Anhur’s Jaffa. His tone implies that whatever terac shri means, it is much worse than death.
Teal’c turns, walking until he is staring out the opening of the tent, like he can’t speak the words while looking at them. “Terac shri refers to the destruction of a host’s soul in the moment of blending.”
There’s a faint buzzing in Daniel’s ears as he stares at Teal’c’s back, trying to reconcile the words.
“Are you saying that Jack is…?” Daniel trails off, not quite able to speak the words.
Teal’c turns to look at him. “O’Neill is Anhur.”
Blindly, Daniel gropes for the nearest chair, lowering himself into it. He glances at Bra’tac, hoping for disagreement perhaps, but the Jaffa Master only nods in confirmation.
“It is a great gift,” Jatal remarks, but Daniel doesn’t have any room to spare his misguided words a thought.
“For such a minor Goa’uld, taking one of the hated Tau’ri rebels as host would have been too much to resist,” Bra’tac surmises in a strangely detached voice. “Used wisely, he could exploit it to great advantage with the System Lords, perhaps increase his influence and power.”
The idea of Jack O’Neill’s knowledge and abilities in the hands of a Goa’uld, minor or not, is grim as hell.
That’s when it finally all slams together in Daniel’s mind, the understanding shuddering into place. Whatever Sam suffered, she would have suffered at the hands of Jack.
Daniel’s eyes latch onto Teal’c, a beat of understanding between them.
At least now they have a pretty good idea where Sam went.
Next Chapter