FIC: Zymotic (8/12)
Chapter 8
The ventilation shaft was even filthier than the first one, but at least this time it was with soot rather than rotten leftovers. Soot Jack could handle. As long as he didn’t start hallucinating that he was a character in Mary Poppins, he would be okay.
Daniel crawled along about two feet behind him, moving so silently that Jack kept looking back over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure he was still there. His paranoia still hadn’t eased up where Daniel was concerned, despite all the potential “proof” that he was really there. There was just something about the whole situation that didn’t feel right, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
“Gotta stop for a minute,” he said after crawling for what seemed like forever. They had reached a part of the shaft that was level enough for them to sit down and rest without slipping back down into the incinerator, and he intended to take advantage of it while he could. He coughed as the soot he’d breathed in caught in his throat. “Got any water on you?” he asked.
Daniel sat down beside him and reached into his robe. “Here you go,” he said, pulling out a canteen and handing it to Jack.
Jack lifted an eyebrow as he took it from Daniel, being careful not to touch his hand. “Got any cheeseburgers in there?” he asked, only half joking.
“What?”
Jack shook his head and opened the canteen. “Never mind,” he said, and took a swig.
Daniel shrugged and took out another canteen. Jack watched him curiously as he drank from it, examining Daniel’s robe carefully for any bulges that might indicate what else he had tucked away in there. He didn’t see anything suspicious at all.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Daniel asked a moment later.
“I’m curious,” Jack said, still eying the robe. “How is it that whenever we need something, you just happen to have it hidden somewhere in your magical robe?”
“Because I planned ahead, Jack,” Daniel said with the air of someone who is trying to teach a toddler a well-known fact. “And you wouldn’t believe the amount of pockets this thing has,” he added, looking down at it in wonder.
Jack rolled his eyes. He felt like asking if it had been made out of a carpet like Mary Poppins’ bag, but he really didn’t want to encourage that thought to remain in his mind.
“I’m sorry to say this, but we really need to keep moving,” Daniel said once he’d tucked the canteens away again. “It’ll be daylight soon.”
“No, actually daylight is… three hours and fifty two minutes away,” Jack said almost robotically.
Daniel furrowed his brow and squinted at him. “How did you know that?”
Jack grimaced and shook his head. “Don’t ask.” He sighed as he maneuvered back into a crawling position. “Onward and upward,” he said, moving forward even though he suddenly felt like there were lead weights attached to his hands and feet.
“So, these hallucinations you’ve been having,” Daniel said as they crawled along. “Have any of them lasted this long before?”
“Ah, so you admit you’re a hallucination,” Jack said, glancing back for a second to smirk at him.
“Nooo, I’m asking if they’ve ever lasted this long.”
“Not that I recall, no,” Jack said with a longsuffering sigh.
“So… does that mean you’re starting to believe me?”
Jack hesitated for a moment before answering. “Maybe.”
“Maybe’s good,” Daniel said. “I guess it’s brought you this far.”
“No, what’s brought me this far is curiosity, plain and simple,” Jack said. “Not to mention desperation.”
Daniel grunted, but Jack couldn’t tell whether it was from crawling uphill or what he’d said.
“Though if I am just imagining this,” Jack continued, “I’ve gotta have a word with my subconscious when this is all over. There had to be an easier way to get out of here than crawling through this damn shaft for miles.”
“There isn’t always a way out, Jack.”
Jack stopped in surprise and turned back to look at Daniel. Somehow it barely even registered to his mind that they weren’t in the shaft anymore - they were standing in his cell in Baal’s fortress.
“How many more times do you think you can go into that sarcophagus before it starts changing you?” Daniel asked. “How many times has it been already? It can regenerate your body, make you strong enough to go through that all over again, but all the time it’s destroying who you are. And once that happens… you won’t be able to ascend no matter how much you want to.”
“Hey,” Jack said as patiently as he could, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do…”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe you could do it,” Daniel said.
“This is me we’re talking about!”
“Yes, it is. Now, please… just try to open your mind.”
“Oh, stop it, will you?” Jack said irritably. He sat down, hoping Daniel would take the hint and shut up, but he always was a persistent son of a bitch.
“Come on, Jack,” Daniel said, more insistently than ever. “You think the Asgard named a ship after you because they thought it was a cool name? Now’s not the time to play dumb. You’re a lot smarter than that. They saw our potential in you… because of who you are and what you’ve done. Humanity’s potential. That’s the same thing Oma saw in me.”
“I am not you,” Jack said firmly.
“Yeah, when has that ever stopped you from doing anything?”
Jack sighed in frustration. There was just no getting through to this guy. “Okay,” he said, “put yourself in my shoes, and me in yours.”
“You’d be here for me.”
“Damn straight!” Jack jumped to his feet. “I’d have busted you out, blown this rat hole to hell, and made sure that son of a bitch suffered!”
“The Others would have stopped you.”
“They’d have a hell of a fight on their hands.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Baal would be dead…”
“Jack…”
“And don’t think I’d stop there.”
“You’re a better man than that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!”
Jack paused to catch his breath, the weight of the words he’d just said finally settling on his shoulders. When he looked around again, the cell was gone, and he was back in the shaft.
Daniel was crouched beside him, a safety zone of just over a foot between them, looking at Jack with an anxious and pained expression.
Jack shuddered and sucked in a deep breath of sooty air. Of all the flashbacks he could have had at that moment, it had to be the one memory he’d never wanted Daniel to know about.
Daniel had only been back in human form for a few months, and he still had patches of his memory missing. He had only retained a handful of memories from when he was ascended, and as far as Jack knew, the visits he’d paid him in Baal’s prison weren’t among them. He hoped that nothing he’d said had tipped Daniel off as to what had happened there, but from the dumbstruck look on Daniel’s face… he knew.
“Jack?” Daniel said, studying him warily. “Are you with me?”
He was tempted to say he’d been with him all along, but instead he opted for a simple, “Yeah.”
“Why… did that conversation sound familiar?”
Jack thumped his head back against the side of the shaft and squeezed his eyes closed. “Ah crap,” he whispered. “Here we go.”
“It was me, wasn’t it?” Daniel said. “I was there… when you were captured.”
“Yeah,” Jack said with a sharp nod. “You seem to enjoy appearing out of nowhere when I’m in captivity. You gave me the same ‘I’m not a delusion’ speech then, too.”
“Wow,” Daniel said under his breath. “I… I didn’t remember.”
Jack felt himself relax a little when he saw the faraway look on Daniel’s face. He looked almost as lost as Jack had been feeling since he’d arrived in this place. He found that encouraging somehow. At least this was the Daniel he knew. “I figured,” he said. “That’s why I never said anything.”
“Was I…” Daniel cut himself off mid-sentence and looked down at his hands.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“What?” Jack repeated.
Daniel sighed. “Was I… helpful?” he asked, looking back at Jack with a nervous laugh.
Jack tilted his head from side to side. “Depends on what you mean by ‘helpful,’” he said.
“Oh.” Daniel seemed to sag a little bit as he spoke, as though Jack’s words had disappointed him. “I guess I probably offered to ascend you, right?”
“That you did,” Jack said.
Daniel chuckled. “And I take it that didn’t go down very well,” he said.
“No, that it didn’t.”
Daniel tried to laugh again, but it faded as he looked around at their current situation. “I’m starting to wish I could still do that now just to get us out of here,” he said.
Jack almost reached over to pat Daniel’s shoulder before he checked himself and tucked his hands under his legs instead. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I think I’d rather keep on hallucinating than be glowy for all eternity anyhow.”
Daniel snorted. “I’m sure you would,” he said. He suddenly turned thoughtful then, and looked over at Jack with a curious expression. “Though a candle burns in my house, there’s nobody home,” he said almost absently. “Did… did you say that?”
Jack was confused for a moment, until he remembered - back in Baal’s fortress, Daniel had come out with some unintelligible Oma-riddle, so Jack had made one up in return. “So you do remember,” he said, not sure whether to be pleased or filled with dread.
“Apparently,” Daniel said. His forehead wrinkled in concentration for a moment, as though he were trying to fish more memories out of the foggy places in his mind, but finally he shrugged his shoulders and moved as if to resume crawling. “Ready to get moving again?” he asked.
Jack sighed and nodded. Truth be told, he was exhausted as hell, but the sooner they got out of this shaft the better.
If only he could hold back the damn flashbacks for the rest of their journey, everything would be a-ok.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
To be continued...
The ventilation shaft was even filthier than the first one, but at least this time it was with soot rather than rotten leftovers. Soot Jack could handle. As long as he didn’t start hallucinating that he was a character in Mary Poppins, he would be okay.
Daniel crawled along about two feet behind him, moving so silently that Jack kept looking back over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure he was still there. His paranoia still hadn’t eased up where Daniel was concerned, despite all the potential “proof” that he was really there. There was just something about the whole situation that didn’t feel right, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
“Gotta stop for a minute,” he said after crawling for what seemed like forever. They had reached a part of the shaft that was level enough for them to sit down and rest without slipping back down into the incinerator, and he intended to take advantage of it while he could. He coughed as the soot he’d breathed in caught in his throat. “Got any water on you?” he asked.
Daniel sat down beside him and reached into his robe. “Here you go,” he said, pulling out a canteen and handing it to Jack.
Jack lifted an eyebrow as he took it from Daniel, being careful not to touch his hand. “Got any cheeseburgers in there?” he asked, only half joking.
“What?”
Jack shook his head and opened the canteen. “Never mind,” he said, and took a swig.
Daniel shrugged and took out another canteen. Jack watched him curiously as he drank from it, examining Daniel’s robe carefully for any bulges that might indicate what else he had tucked away in there. He didn’t see anything suspicious at all.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Daniel asked a moment later.
“I’m curious,” Jack said, still eying the robe. “How is it that whenever we need something, you just happen to have it hidden somewhere in your magical robe?”
“Because I planned ahead, Jack,” Daniel said with the air of someone who is trying to teach a toddler a well-known fact. “And you wouldn’t believe the amount of pockets this thing has,” he added, looking down at it in wonder.
Jack rolled his eyes. He felt like asking if it had been made out of a carpet like Mary Poppins’ bag, but he really didn’t want to encourage that thought to remain in his mind.
“I’m sorry to say this, but we really need to keep moving,” Daniel said once he’d tucked the canteens away again. “It’ll be daylight soon.”
“No, actually daylight is… three hours and fifty two minutes away,” Jack said almost robotically.
Daniel furrowed his brow and squinted at him. “How did you know that?”
Jack grimaced and shook his head. “Don’t ask.” He sighed as he maneuvered back into a crawling position. “Onward and upward,” he said, moving forward even though he suddenly felt like there were lead weights attached to his hands and feet.
“So, these hallucinations you’ve been having,” Daniel said as they crawled along. “Have any of them lasted this long before?”
“Ah, so you admit you’re a hallucination,” Jack said, glancing back for a second to smirk at him.
“Nooo, I’m asking if they’ve ever lasted this long.”
“Not that I recall, no,” Jack said with a longsuffering sigh.
“So… does that mean you’re starting to believe me?”
Jack hesitated for a moment before answering. “Maybe.”
“Maybe’s good,” Daniel said. “I guess it’s brought you this far.”
“No, what’s brought me this far is curiosity, plain and simple,” Jack said. “Not to mention desperation.”
Daniel grunted, but Jack couldn’t tell whether it was from crawling uphill or what he’d said.
“Though if I am just imagining this,” Jack continued, “I’ve gotta have a word with my subconscious when this is all over. There had to be an easier way to get out of here than crawling through this damn shaft for miles.”
“There isn’t always a way out, Jack.”
Jack stopped in surprise and turned back to look at Daniel. Somehow it barely even registered to his mind that they weren’t in the shaft anymore - they were standing in his cell in Baal’s fortress.
“How many more times do you think you can go into that sarcophagus before it starts changing you?” Daniel asked. “How many times has it been already? It can regenerate your body, make you strong enough to go through that all over again, but all the time it’s destroying who you are. And once that happens… you won’t be able to ascend no matter how much you want to.”
“Hey,” Jack said as patiently as he could, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do…”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe you could do it,” Daniel said.
“This is me we’re talking about!”
“Yes, it is. Now, please… just try to open your mind.”
“Oh, stop it, will you?” Jack said irritably. He sat down, hoping Daniel would take the hint and shut up, but he always was a persistent son of a bitch.
“Come on, Jack,” Daniel said, more insistently than ever. “You think the Asgard named a ship after you because they thought it was a cool name? Now’s not the time to play dumb. You’re a lot smarter than that. They saw our potential in you… because of who you are and what you’ve done. Humanity’s potential. That’s the same thing Oma saw in me.”
“I am not you,” Jack said firmly.
“Yeah, when has that ever stopped you from doing anything?”
Jack sighed in frustration. There was just no getting through to this guy. “Okay,” he said, “put yourself in my shoes, and me in yours.”
“You’d be here for me.”
“Damn straight!” Jack jumped to his feet. “I’d have busted you out, blown this rat hole to hell, and made sure that son of a bitch suffered!”
“The Others would have stopped you.”
“They’d have a hell of a fight on their hands.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Baal would be dead…”
“Jack…”
“And don’t think I’d stop there.”
“You’re a better man than that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!”
Jack paused to catch his breath, the weight of the words he’d just said finally settling on his shoulders. When he looked around again, the cell was gone, and he was back in the shaft.
Daniel was crouched beside him, a safety zone of just over a foot between them, looking at Jack with an anxious and pained expression.
Jack shuddered and sucked in a deep breath of sooty air. Of all the flashbacks he could have had at that moment, it had to be the one memory he’d never wanted Daniel to know about.
Daniel had only been back in human form for a few months, and he still had patches of his memory missing. He had only retained a handful of memories from when he was ascended, and as far as Jack knew, the visits he’d paid him in Baal’s prison weren’t among them. He hoped that nothing he’d said had tipped Daniel off as to what had happened there, but from the dumbstruck look on Daniel’s face… he knew.
“Jack?” Daniel said, studying him warily. “Are you with me?”
He was tempted to say he’d been with him all along, but instead he opted for a simple, “Yeah.”
“Why… did that conversation sound familiar?”
Jack thumped his head back against the side of the shaft and squeezed his eyes closed. “Ah crap,” he whispered. “Here we go.”
“It was me, wasn’t it?” Daniel said. “I was there… when you were captured.”
“Yeah,” Jack said with a sharp nod. “You seem to enjoy appearing out of nowhere when I’m in captivity. You gave me the same ‘I’m not a delusion’ speech then, too.”
“Wow,” Daniel said under his breath. “I… I didn’t remember.”
Jack felt himself relax a little when he saw the faraway look on Daniel’s face. He looked almost as lost as Jack had been feeling since he’d arrived in this place. He found that encouraging somehow. At least this was the Daniel he knew. “I figured,” he said. “That’s why I never said anything.”
“Was I…” Daniel cut himself off mid-sentence and looked down at his hands.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“What?” Jack repeated.
Daniel sighed. “Was I… helpful?” he asked, looking back at Jack with a nervous laugh.
Jack tilted his head from side to side. “Depends on what you mean by ‘helpful,’” he said.
“Oh.” Daniel seemed to sag a little bit as he spoke, as though Jack’s words had disappointed him. “I guess I probably offered to ascend you, right?”
“That you did,” Jack said.
Daniel chuckled. “And I take it that didn’t go down very well,” he said.
“No, that it didn’t.”
Daniel tried to laugh again, but it faded as he looked around at their current situation. “I’m starting to wish I could still do that now just to get us out of here,” he said.
Jack almost reached over to pat Daniel’s shoulder before he checked himself and tucked his hands under his legs instead. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I think I’d rather keep on hallucinating than be glowy for all eternity anyhow.”
Daniel snorted. “I’m sure you would,” he said. He suddenly turned thoughtful then, and looked over at Jack with a curious expression. “Though a candle burns in my house, there’s nobody home,” he said almost absently. “Did… did you say that?”
Jack was confused for a moment, until he remembered - back in Baal’s fortress, Daniel had come out with some unintelligible Oma-riddle, so Jack had made one up in return. “So you do remember,” he said, not sure whether to be pleased or filled with dread.
“Apparently,” Daniel said. His forehead wrinkled in concentration for a moment, as though he were trying to fish more memories out of the foggy places in his mind, but finally he shrugged his shoulders and moved as if to resume crawling. “Ready to get moving again?” he asked.
Jack sighed and nodded. Truth be told, he was exhausted as hell, but the sooner they got out of this shaft the better.
If only he could hold back the damn flashbacks for the rest of their journey, everything would be a-ok.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
To be continued...