FIC: Midnight's Children (chapter 5)
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Title: Midnight’s Children (chapter 5)
Rating: R
Genre/pairing/warnings: Daniel/Vala, Drama, Action-Adventure, mentions of torture in some chapters
Setting: Post-Ark of Truth
Word count: 3,443
Summary: Daniel and Vala, captured and held prisoner, struggle to survive a dark and painful ordeal. Not to mention each other. The bonds forged through hardship may prove to be the strongest of all, if only they can see them.
Previous: Part 4
Vala was jarred from sleep when a misaimed hand collided awkwardly with her face. She bolted upright in alarm and blinked. It wasn’t her eyes; it was still solidly black in the cell. She raked tangled hair from her face with her fingers.
“Ugh. Poke my eye out, why don’t you. Why did you do that?”
Daniel’s hand moved to her shoulder, firm and urgent. “Shh. What’s that?”
Vala cocked her head and listened. “Not your apology, that’s for sure.”
“Someone’s coming.”
The muted echo of distant footsteps brought her to full alertness.
“Finally.”
Arms out in front, she crabbed her way to the door of the cell and was gratified to make out the slow bloom of approaching light. The scuff of footsteps grew louder.
“Hey!” she called. “Down here! We need to talk to someone!”
The shadowy forms of two men eventually came into view. Vala wasn’t sure she recognised either of them, but it was hard to tell in the partial light and with much of their upper bodies obscured. One carried a torch and what was probably a weapon of some kind, the other had a wide container slung under his arm, its base propped on one hip.
“Listen,” Vala began hurriedly, words rushing to her lips. “I think there’s been some mistake here. I’m sure you’re all very busy with your fighting and repairs and whatnot, but we’ve been left down here for quite a while now, and you didn’t leave us with any water or blankets or anything, and I think someone may have forgotten to come and get us. We’re supposed to be helping, you know, upstairs. So if you could just take us back to the people in charge, we’ll get right to work.”
There was no response from the other side of the door. Vala sensed Daniel moving into position behind her, perhaps anticipating a chance to move. What were they waiting for? Would they open the door?
“Come on, boys,” she tried again. “Won’t you at least talk to me? What’s going on out there? Why are we being kept down here?”
They ignored her questions. There were some rustling sounds, but Vala couldn’t see what they were doing. She startled back as something was pushed through the little hatch by her face. Whatever it was landed with a wet smack by her knees and was quickly followed by another object that bounced and rolled off into the cell. Then the men turned and walked away, taking the light with them.
“Hey, where are you going?” she called after them, a rising note of panic in her voice that she couldn’t quite conquer. “Come back! Please, we just want to talk to you!”
Her fingers sought the hatch again, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. They were leaving. They were leaving her here again. A nail broke under the force of her grip.
She felt hands patting at her legs and around the floor to either side of her.
“Shit,” Daniel cursed under his breath as he snatched something up.
She forced her lungs to operate, although it was an effort to tear her eyes from the disappearing light. “What’s the matter?” she whispered.
“I think it’s a water skin. Some of it’s spilled.”
Vala’s world narrowed to the implications of those few words, the men outside forgotten. She felt suddenly queasy and tentatively touched her fingers to the small puddle spreading towards her calf.
“Is it…” She swallowed. “Is there some left?”
“Yes. Here.”
Now that it came to it, she wasn’t sure she could drink and keep it down. She released a controlled breath and crushed her trembling hands together. “You first.”
She wished for at least the fiftieth time that she could actually see something, to see how much water they had, to see that Daniel was drinking his fair share, to see the expression on his face that went with his quietly exhaled “oh god” as he savoured the first drink they’d had in at least two days. Actually, while she was wishing for things… But no. She wasn’t playing that game. She’d promised herself. That way lay madness.
“Where’s your hand?” Daniel groped for it, captured it and wrapped her fingers around the neck of the pouch. “Careful.”
“I’ve got it.” The water was tepid and foul and the most wonderful thing she had ever tasted. She slumped back against the door and let it run down her parched throat, soothing and exquisite and nowhere near enough. She imagined her insides as paper dry, the liquid sucked up and absorbed before it even hit her stomach.
She instantly wanted some more.
Somewhere in front of her, Daniel was moving cautiously around the cell, searching. Her earlier investigation of their accommodations had revealed only a single feature of note: a shallow channel that ran down one side of the room. It terminated at a small culvert that disappeared into the base of the wall, just to the left of the door. They hadn’t needed to question its function. Vala really hoped Daniel wasn’t putting his hands anywhere near it.
“Found it,” he announced. “Oh. Yuck.”
“What is it?”
“Feels like some kind of bread. It, um, rolled in something.”
“Charming.”
She heard him return to his place by the wall and rap his knuckles on the crust of the loaf. It sounded dense and entirely unappetising. “I don’t think I could work up enough spit to eat this even if I wanted to,” he said.
“I’m not even hungry anymore,” Vala agreed, although that wasn’t entirely true.
“Probably a bad idea anyway,” Daniel murmured, almost to himself. “Eating will only dehydrate us further.”
Vala hefted the empty water skin in her palm and draped it optimistically over the bottom lip of the hatch. Perhaps when the men returned -- when they returned, she repeated to herself sternly -- they would see it waiting for them there and refill it.
“I’m going to take this as a good sign,” she offered. She was confident. She was.
Daniel said nothing.
“I mean, why bother feeding us unless they want to keep us alive, right?”
“Yeah,” Daniel agreed distractedly. She thought she could hear him spinning their bread loosely between his hands.
“You’re thinking.”
“Hmm.”
“Thinking something negative.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t refute her statement either, she noticed.
“Well stop it.”
“It’s nothing,” Daniel said in a way that meant it definitely wasn’t nothing. It was something alright. Something he wasn’t going to share and that she didn’t need to hear. She wasn’t going to ask.
“Alright, what?” she asked.
Daniel hesitated in that manner of his that Vala found both infuriating and endearing in equal measure. If she could actually see his face, she was sure she’d recognise the furrow between his eyebrows, the thin line of his lips. She dreaded that look. She missed that look. She missed any look.
“They’re building to something,” he said slowly, verbalising an emerging train of thought. “This is an initiation period.”
Vala waited for him to elaborate further, then prompted him to continue. “So…”
“So, they’re grinding us down. Depriving us of space, light, food and water. Keeping us guessing, uncomfortable. To make us more likely to cooperate when they need us to.”
She let that sink in for a moment. Okay, she could work with this. “Which suggests to me that they eventually plan to let us out, for whatever reason that may be. Which is a good thing. And they’ve let us stay together. That could work in our favour too, right?”
“Hmm.” His tone intimated that he gave their captors more credit than Vala dared to. For some reason that frightened her more than anything.
She resolved to detach herself from her situation and look at things objectively. Perhaps Daniel had the right idea: rationalising it took away some of its power. And knowing it had a purpose, that this wasn’t just random neglect for cruelty’s sake, kept things predictable. Predictable was something she could handle; it was the unknown that terrified her.
While ominous, she found that Daniel’s statement actually comforted her somewhat. They weren’t really going to be left to die. They had hope. She could weather any hardship where there was hope.
When Daniel spoke next, it was with a hard edge borne of bitter experience. “We should make a decision. Now, before things go much further. We need to decide, how much do we want to resist them?”
“Resist them?” Vala repeated, confused. This wasn’t what she had expected. “What do you mean? Surely we should do whatever it takes to survive? Must you always be so bloody-mindedly cryptic?”
Daniel made a quiet chuffing sound that could have been laughter. “You sound just like Jack.”
“He’s an insightful man.”
The next sound was definitely a laugh.
“I’m serious,” he eventually continued, sobering. “Where do we draw the line? Think about it. First you’re fixing shields to help ward off attack. You’re aiding your captors to keep you prisoner, but you’re doing it for food and water, so you tell yourself it’s a fair trade, right? It’s worth it. Next they want access to a sealed cache of weapons they’ve discovered. You figure they’d find a way to get hold of them eventually, so you help them because you’re hungry, and they promise they’ll feed you. But then they want more. They want to make some integrated weapons systems operational that’ll let them kill vast numbers of their enemy -- an enemy we know nothing about, by the way -- or they find a lab with some promising looking biological weapons, or the potential for experimentation on enemy soldiers, or something capable of mass destruction. Do you help them then? For a drink of water? What about when they ask for ‘gate addresses to other worlds, or the codes to Earth? You’ve already crossed several lines, so what’s one more?” He seemed to run out of steam for a moment, perhaps appalled by the direction of his own thoughts. “All I’m saying is, we should prepare to make a stand. Because at some point, we’ll need to, and it will be easier to do it sooner rather than later.”
“You’re assuming we’re going to be here that long,” Vala observed quietly, not quite ready to face the full implications of his words.
“I think we have to assume the worst. That way we can only be pleasantly surprised.”
Vala imagined Daniel striding up and down the briefing room at the SGC, or pacing restlessly about his office. It was easy to do; she’d witnessed it many times. He’d use his hands as much as his words during his impassioned speech, eloquent and intimidating in defence of his viewpoint. He was a principled man. He would not compromise his ethics, under duress or otherwise. Could she say the same for herself? She considered herself a pragmatist. A survivor. If there was a code of conduct she had always followed, it was to take what life gave her and turn it to her advantage.
She could easily see herself starting out on that slippery slope, a flexible morality smoothing the way towards survival at any costs. It would be easy to convince herself, bit by tiny bit, that what she did was against her will and a necessary evil, when in fact she had a choice, right here and right now.
Daniel had been right before, all those many months ago, when she’d woken to a life empty of memory, laced with fear and a lonely sense of something missing; when she’d looked down the barrel of a gun at a stranger and instead seen a friend; when she’d remembered the life she’d been building and realised all at once that, unequivocally, it was what she’d wanted.
She’d already made the decision to stop running.
She'd decided to stop taking the easy way out when staying had promised to be the stonier road. She’d paid heavily for that decision, but she’d also reaped rewards. Was this any different? Was the prospect of pain and hardship, of standing by what was important in the face of almost certain reprisal, really any different from putting herself in the line of fire, from leaving herself vulnerable and taking a risk, all for the chance of a place to belong, of a life she could be proud of?
She knew the answer. What they were really deciding here was to accept, on their own terms, that they may not get out of this alive. To control the manner of their own suffering by refusing to play the game. To face the worst of what their captors could inflict upon them before they became too weak not to break.
She could be strong if he could. They would do this together.
Her voice was steady, her conviction absolute. “Then I say we keep it simple. We do nothing that helps them kill.”
She was almost certain she could feel Daniel’s sad smile in the darkness ahead of her, and she felt her throat constrict with some unnamed emotion.
“Okay,” he said simply.
“Okay,” she repeated with finality. “That’s settled then. We’ll help each other through this.”
It was all so very easy when it came right down to it.
“So,” she said brightly, breaking the solemn mood, and settled back to stretch out her legs. “Can I interest you in a game of catch?”
---
“Turn around.”
“Vala, it’s pitch black in here. I couldn’t see anything if I wanted to.”
“Turn. Around.”
Daniel sighed. “Fine. There. Go ahead.”
She waited for a moment, but heard nothing. “Are you actually turned?”
“You can’t even tell?”
“Daniel!”
“Yes, I promise. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before anyway. You’re not usually so modest.”
“This is different.” Her clothing rustled. “And cover your ears.”
“Oh for--“
“I will hurt you.”
“Okay, okay. Covering.”
“Have you done it?”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Hmph.”
---
When the men came to feed them again, they once more ignored their prisoners’ appeals for information. Neither were they moved to provide an extra water skin, no matter how many times Vala explained the concept of one plus one equals two.
She hovered just back from the door this time, nervously eyeing the hatch and hands raised in readiness. She caught their rations neatly and not a drop was lost.
The extra mouthfuls of water were heaven.
They were still too thirsty to face eating the bread, and decided to stay hungry.
---
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? You can’t just refuse to answer. That’s cheating.”
“Your questions are coercive. And ridiculous. That choice would never actually come up.”
“How do you know that? Stranger things have happened.” Vala tried for her best wheedling tone of voice. “I’ll tell you what they said if you answer.”
“Wait a minute. You’ve played this with the others?”
“Of course. And they had no reservations giving me straight answers, I can tell you.”
“I’m still not going to answer.”
“It’s Cam, isn’t it?”
Daniel stayed quiet.
“Ah ha! I knew it.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t need to. Your pause spoke loud and clear.” She allowed herself a smug smile. “You’re going to feel bad now. He chose Teal’c.”
Daniel couldn’t hide the intrigue from his voice. “He did? Huh.”
“Something about going around and coming around. He was rather mysterious about the whole thing.”
“Well.” Daniel sounded strangely pleased.
“Okay okay, I’ve got another one. Who do you think I would rather smack in the face? Sam or Dr Lam?”
“Vala!”
She huffed. “You’re no fun at all.”
---
Daniel gave in to her badgering and agreed to try the next time. Despite knowing it was an exercise in futility, he rephrased their questions in as many languages as he could think to try, but the result was the same: their visitors told them nothing.
They decided to spare a little water to soften the inside of their bread and choked down a stale and desperate meal. It sat like a stone in Vala’s stomach, but it was better than the painful emptiness.
---
They’d stopped bothering to take turns sleeping, instead retreating to the scant respite of slumber whenever they were physically capable. Which, as it turned out, was more frequently than Vala would have expected. It was a trend she was in no doubt would be exponential. Something would surely have to change.
It was becoming hard to rouse herself sometimes, and the men were almost at the door when she realised her mistake. She just made it in time to catch the pouch before it fell, and resolved to stay alert next time.
Her pleas for information again went unanswered.
---
Vala stayed silent the next time. And the time after that. It changed nothing, and the acceptance of the routine was almost a relief.
---
“How many does this make?”
“Nine.”
“Are you sure? Wasn’t it nine the last time?”
“No.”
“Feels fuller this time.”
“You say that every time.”
“Well this time it’s true.” Vala’s practised fingers found the neck of the water skin and raised it to her lips.
It was her turn first. That she definitely remembered.
---
“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Vala asked wistfully, her back aching from her awkward sprawl across Daniel’s legs. It was too much trouble to move.
“You asked me that yesterday,” Daniel’s tired voice answered, scratchy and hoarse.
“Did I?” she wondered dreamily. ”Well, stands to reason they’d be doing something different today then, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered wearily, lacking even the energy to be irritable.
Vala hoped the others were thinking of them, whatever it was they were doing.
---
The eleventh time, they both slept through the drop.
They screamed at each other for as long as their voices held out, but never decided on who was to blame.
---
They stopped counting after that. Now when the silent water carriers came, it was all they could do to lift themselves from the floor to collect it.
---
Vala dreamed.
They were powerful, lucid dreams, the kind she rarely had under other circumstances. She was reluctant to wake from them and sought them eagerly whenever she closed her eyes. The only ones she didn’t welcome were the visions of water, of running rivers and flowing fountains. They couldn’t slake her thirst no matter how openly she embraced them, and she resented her dream self for unfailingly seeking that quenching promise.
Tormented by thirst and weakened with hunger, it was almost too much effort to approach the door when the familiar sounds came again. Daniel dragged himself over, leaving Vala propped against the wall where she lay. If she canted her head, she could just make him out, backlit against the growing illumination.
Her head swam in anticipation of the water, her pulse throbbing painfully behind dry and swollen eyes. The empty skin was pulled from the hatch with a thwap of leather on metal. What a sound. What a beautiful, beautiful sound.
But rather than return it, the men kept it. She heard the staccato impact of fingers punching buttons, and with a rusty scrape, the door ground slowly open.
Daniel shuffled backwards automatically as light flooded the room, and she struggled upright to join him at his side. They shielded their eyes in unison against the glare and squinted up at the two stooping figures silhouetted in the doorway.
“You,” one of them barked. He made some kind of gesture that was impossible to make out against the dazzling light.
“Uh,” Daniel began, having to stop and swallow to find his voice. He didn’t need it.
One of the men bent low and entered the cell, and a bruising grip snared Vala’s upper arm. Before it occurred to her to struggle, she was pulled forcefully towards the door, her knees catching painfully along every imperfection on the floor.
She felt Daniel lunge for her and wrap his hand in the fabric of her jacket before she was yanked from him.
“Wait,” he rasped urgently, “where are you taking her? Don’t--”
The snap and buzz of some kind of charge cut him off abruptly, and Vala had time see him jerk back before the cell door clanged shut behind her. The second guard tucked the pain stick back into its belt holster as he moved to take up her other side, and together they dragged her bodily down the tunnel.
Vala thought she could just make out the sound of boots striking metal in anger before she was hauled from earshot.
Part 6
Title: Midnight’s Children (chapter 5)
Rating: R
Genre/pairing/warnings: Daniel/Vala, Drama, Action-Adventure, mentions of torture in some chapters
Setting: Post-Ark of Truth
Word count: 3,443
Summary: Daniel and Vala, captured and held prisoner, struggle to survive a dark and painful ordeal. Not to mention each other. The bonds forged through hardship may prove to be the strongest of all, if only they can see them.
Previous: Part 4
Vala was jarred from sleep when a misaimed hand collided awkwardly with her face. She bolted upright in alarm and blinked. It wasn’t her eyes; it was still solidly black in the cell. She raked tangled hair from her face with her fingers.
“Ugh. Poke my eye out, why don’t you. Why did you do that?”
Daniel’s hand moved to her shoulder, firm and urgent. “Shh. What’s that?”
Vala cocked her head and listened. “Not your apology, that’s for sure.”
“Someone’s coming.”
The muted echo of distant footsteps brought her to full alertness.
“Finally.”
Arms out in front, she crabbed her way to the door of the cell and was gratified to make out the slow bloom of approaching light. The scuff of footsteps grew louder.
“Hey!” she called. “Down here! We need to talk to someone!”
The shadowy forms of two men eventually came into view. Vala wasn’t sure she recognised either of them, but it was hard to tell in the partial light and with much of their upper bodies obscured. One carried a torch and what was probably a weapon of some kind, the other had a wide container slung under his arm, its base propped on one hip.
“Listen,” Vala began hurriedly, words rushing to her lips. “I think there’s been some mistake here. I’m sure you’re all very busy with your fighting and repairs and whatnot, but we’ve been left down here for quite a while now, and you didn’t leave us with any water or blankets or anything, and I think someone may have forgotten to come and get us. We’re supposed to be helping, you know, upstairs. So if you could just take us back to the people in charge, we’ll get right to work.”
There was no response from the other side of the door. Vala sensed Daniel moving into position behind her, perhaps anticipating a chance to move. What were they waiting for? Would they open the door?
“Come on, boys,” she tried again. “Won’t you at least talk to me? What’s going on out there? Why are we being kept down here?”
They ignored her questions. There were some rustling sounds, but Vala couldn’t see what they were doing. She startled back as something was pushed through the little hatch by her face. Whatever it was landed with a wet smack by her knees and was quickly followed by another object that bounced and rolled off into the cell. Then the men turned and walked away, taking the light with them.
“Hey, where are you going?” she called after them, a rising note of panic in her voice that she couldn’t quite conquer. “Come back! Please, we just want to talk to you!”
Her fingers sought the hatch again, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. They were leaving. They were leaving her here again. A nail broke under the force of her grip.
She felt hands patting at her legs and around the floor to either side of her.
“Shit,” Daniel cursed under his breath as he snatched something up.
She forced her lungs to operate, although it was an effort to tear her eyes from the disappearing light. “What’s the matter?” she whispered.
“I think it’s a water skin. Some of it’s spilled.”
Vala’s world narrowed to the implications of those few words, the men outside forgotten. She felt suddenly queasy and tentatively touched her fingers to the small puddle spreading towards her calf.
“Is it…” She swallowed. “Is there some left?”
“Yes. Here.”
Now that it came to it, she wasn’t sure she could drink and keep it down. She released a controlled breath and crushed her trembling hands together. “You first.”
She wished for at least the fiftieth time that she could actually see something, to see how much water they had, to see that Daniel was drinking his fair share, to see the expression on his face that went with his quietly exhaled “oh god” as he savoured the first drink they’d had in at least two days. Actually, while she was wishing for things… But no. She wasn’t playing that game. She’d promised herself. That way lay madness.
“Where’s your hand?” Daniel groped for it, captured it and wrapped her fingers around the neck of the pouch. “Careful.”
“I’ve got it.” The water was tepid and foul and the most wonderful thing she had ever tasted. She slumped back against the door and let it run down her parched throat, soothing and exquisite and nowhere near enough. She imagined her insides as paper dry, the liquid sucked up and absorbed before it even hit her stomach.
She instantly wanted some more.
Somewhere in front of her, Daniel was moving cautiously around the cell, searching. Her earlier investigation of their accommodations had revealed only a single feature of note: a shallow channel that ran down one side of the room. It terminated at a small culvert that disappeared into the base of the wall, just to the left of the door. They hadn’t needed to question its function. Vala really hoped Daniel wasn’t putting his hands anywhere near it.
“Found it,” he announced. “Oh. Yuck.”
“What is it?”
“Feels like some kind of bread. It, um, rolled in something.”
“Charming.”
She heard him return to his place by the wall and rap his knuckles on the crust of the loaf. It sounded dense and entirely unappetising. “I don’t think I could work up enough spit to eat this even if I wanted to,” he said.
“I’m not even hungry anymore,” Vala agreed, although that wasn’t entirely true.
“Probably a bad idea anyway,” Daniel murmured, almost to himself. “Eating will only dehydrate us further.”
Vala hefted the empty water skin in her palm and draped it optimistically over the bottom lip of the hatch. Perhaps when the men returned -- when they returned, she repeated to herself sternly -- they would see it waiting for them there and refill it.
“I’m going to take this as a good sign,” she offered. She was confident. She was.
Daniel said nothing.
“I mean, why bother feeding us unless they want to keep us alive, right?”
“Yeah,” Daniel agreed distractedly. She thought she could hear him spinning their bread loosely between his hands.
“You’re thinking.”
“Hmm.”
“Thinking something negative.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t refute her statement either, she noticed.
“Well stop it.”
“It’s nothing,” Daniel said in a way that meant it definitely wasn’t nothing. It was something alright. Something he wasn’t going to share and that she didn’t need to hear. She wasn’t going to ask.
“Alright, what?” she asked.
Daniel hesitated in that manner of his that Vala found both infuriating and endearing in equal measure. If she could actually see his face, she was sure she’d recognise the furrow between his eyebrows, the thin line of his lips. She dreaded that look. She missed that look. She missed any look.
“They’re building to something,” he said slowly, verbalising an emerging train of thought. “This is an initiation period.”
Vala waited for him to elaborate further, then prompted him to continue. “So…”
“So, they’re grinding us down. Depriving us of space, light, food and water. Keeping us guessing, uncomfortable. To make us more likely to cooperate when they need us to.”
She let that sink in for a moment. Okay, she could work with this. “Which suggests to me that they eventually plan to let us out, for whatever reason that may be. Which is a good thing. And they’ve let us stay together. That could work in our favour too, right?”
“Hmm.” His tone intimated that he gave their captors more credit than Vala dared to. For some reason that frightened her more than anything.
She resolved to detach herself from her situation and look at things objectively. Perhaps Daniel had the right idea: rationalising it took away some of its power. And knowing it had a purpose, that this wasn’t just random neglect for cruelty’s sake, kept things predictable. Predictable was something she could handle; it was the unknown that terrified her.
While ominous, she found that Daniel’s statement actually comforted her somewhat. They weren’t really going to be left to die. They had hope. She could weather any hardship where there was hope.
When Daniel spoke next, it was with a hard edge borne of bitter experience. “We should make a decision. Now, before things go much further. We need to decide, how much do we want to resist them?”
“Resist them?” Vala repeated, confused. This wasn’t what she had expected. “What do you mean? Surely we should do whatever it takes to survive? Must you always be so bloody-mindedly cryptic?”
Daniel made a quiet chuffing sound that could have been laughter. “You sound just like Jack.”
“He’s an insightful man.”
The next sound was definitely a laugh.
“I’m serious,” he eventually continued, sobering. “Where do we draw the line? Think about it. First you’re fixing shields to help ward off attack. You’re aiding your captors to keep you prisoner, but you’re doing it for food and water, so you tell yourself it’s a fair trade, right? It’s worth it. Next they want access to a sealed cache of weapons they’ve discovered. You figure they’d find a way to get hold of them eventually, so you help them because you’re hungry, and they promise they’ll feed you. But then they want more. They want to make some integrated weapons systems operational that’ll let them kill vast numbers of their enemy -- an enemy we know nothing about, by the way -- or they find a lab with some promising looking biological weapons, or the potential for experimentation on enemy soldiers, or something capable of mass destruction. Do you help them then? For a drink of water? What about when they ask for ‘gate addresses to other worlds, or the codes to Earth? You’ve already crossed several lines, so what’s one more?” He seemed to run out of steam for a moment, perhaps appalled by the direction of his own thoughts. “All I’m saying is, we should prepare to make a stand. Because at some point, we’ll need to, and it will be easier to do it sooner rather than later.”
“You’re assuming we’re going to be here that long,” Vala observed quietly, not quite ready to face the full implications of his words.
“I think we have to assume the worst. That way we can only be pleasantly surprised.”
Vala imagined Daniel striding up and down the briefing room at the SGC, or pacing restlessly about his office. It was easy to do; she’d witnessed it many times. He’d use his hands as much as his words during his impassioned speech, eloquent and intimidating in defence of his viewpoint. He was a principled man. He would not compromise his ethics, under duress or otherwise. Could she say the same for herself? She considered herself a pragmatist. A survivor. If there was a code of conduct she had always followed, it was to take what life gave her and turn it to her advantage.
She could easily see herself starting out on that slippery slope, a flexible morality smoothing the way towards survival at any costs. It would be easy to convince herself, bit by tiny bit, that what she did was against her will and a necessary evil, when in fact she had a choice, right here and right now.
Daniel had been right before, all those many months ago, when she’d woken to a life empty of memory, laced with fear and a lonely sense of something missing; when she’d looked down the barrel of a gun at a stranger and instead seen a friend; when she’d remembered the life she’d been building and realised all at once that, unequivocally, it was what she’d wanted.
She’d already made the decision to stop running.
She'd decided to stop taking the easy way out when staying had promised to be the stonier road. She’d paid heavily for that decision, but she’d also reaped rewards. Was this any different? Was the prospect of pain and hardship, of standing by what was important in the face of almost certain reprisal, really any different from putting herself in the line of fire, from leaving herself vulnerable and taking a risk, all for the chance of a place to belong, of a life she could be proud of?
She knew the answer. What they were really deciding here was to accept, on their own terms, that they may not get out of this alive. To control the manner of their own suffering by refusing to play the game. To face the worst of what their captors could inflict upon them before they became too weak not to break.
She could be strong if he could. They would do this together.
Her voice was steady, her conviction absolute. “Then I say we keep it simple. We do nothing that helps them kill.”
She was almost certain she could feel Daniel’s sad smile in the darkness ahead of her, and she felt her throat constrict with some unnamed emotion.
“Okay,” he said simply.
“Okay,” she repeated with finality. “That’s settled then. We’ll help each other through this.”
It was all so very easy when it came right down to it.
“So,” she said brightly, breaking the solemn mood, and settled back to stretch out her legs. “Can I interest you in a game of catch?”
---
“Turn around.”
“Vala, it’s pitch black in here. I couldn’t see anything if I wanted to.”
“Turn. Around.”
Daniel sighed. “Fine. There. Go ahead.”
She waited for a moment, but heard nothing. “Are you actually turned?”
“You can’t even tell?”
“Daniel!”
“Yes, I promise. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before anyway. You’re not usually so modest.”
“This is different.” Her clothing rustled. “And cover your ears.”
“Oh for--“
“I will hurt you.”
“Okay, okay. Covering.”
“Have you done it?”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Hmph.”
---
When the men came to feed them again, they once more ignored their prisoners’ appeals for information. Neither were they moved to provide an extra water skin, no matter how many times Vala explained the concept of one plus one equals two.
She hovered just back from the door this time, nervously eyeing the hatch and hands raised in readiness. She caught their rations neatly and not a drop was lost.
The extra mouthfuls of water were heaven.
They were still too thirsty to face eating the bread, and decided to stay hungry.
---
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? You can’t just refuse to answer. That’s cheating.”
“Your questions are coercive. And ridiculous. That choice would never actually come up.”
“How do you know that? Stranger things have happened.” Vala tried for her best wheedling tone of voice. “I’ll tell you what they said if you answer.”
“Wait a minute. You’ve played this with the others?”
“Of course. And they had no reservations giving me straight answers, I can tell you.”
“I’m still not going to answer.”
“It’s Cam, isn’t it?”
Daniel stayed quiet.
“Ah ha! I knew it.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t need to. Your pause spoke loud and clear.” She allowed herself a smug smile. “You’re going to feel bad now. He chose Teal’c.”
Daniel couldn’t hide the intrigue from his voice. “He did? Huh.”
“Something about going around and coming around. He was rather mysterious about the whole thing.”
“Well.” Daniel sounded strangely pleased.
“Okay okay, I’ve got another one. Who do you think I would rather smack in the face? Sam or Dr Lam?”
“Vala!”
She huffed. “You’re no fun at all.”
---
Daniel gave in to her badgering and agreed to try the next time. Despite knowing it was an exercise in futility, he rephrased their questions in as many languages as he could think to try, but the result was the same: their visitors told them nothing.
They decided to spare a little water to soften the inside of their bread and choked down a stale and desperate meal. It sat like a stone in Vala’s stomach, but it was better than the painful emptiness.
---
They’d stopped bothering to take turns sleeping, instead retreating to the scant respite of slumber whenever they were physically capable. Which, as it turned out, was more frequently than Vala would have expected. It was a trend she was in no doubt would be exponential. Something would surely have to change.
It was becoming hard to rouse herself sometimes, and the men were almost at the door when she realised her mistake. She just made it in time to catch the pouch before it fell, and resolved to stay alert next time.
Her pleas for information again went unanswered.
---
Vala stayed silent the next time. And the time after that. It changed nothing, and the acceptance of the routine was almost a relief.
---
“How many does this make?”
“Nine.”
“Are you sure? Wasn’t it nine the last time?”
“No.”
“Feels fuller this time.”
“You say that every time.”
“Well this time it’s true.” Vala’s practised fingers found the neck of the water skin and raised it to her lips.
It was her turn first. That she definitely remembered.
---
“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Vala asked wistfully, her back aching from her awkward sprawl across Daniel’s legs. It was too much trouble to move.
“You asked me that yesterday,” Daniel’s tired voice answered, scratchy and hoarse.
“Did I?” she wondered dreamily. ”Well, stands to reason they’d be doing something different today then, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered wearily, lacking even the energy to be irritable.
Vala hoped the others were thinking of them, whatever it was they were doing.
---
The eleventh time, they both slept through the drop.
They screamed at each other for as long as their voices held out, but never decided on who was to blame.
---
They stopped counting after that. Now when the silent water carriers came, it was all they could do to lift themselves from the floor to collect it.
---
Vala dreamed.
They were powerful, lucid dreams, the kind she rarely had under other circumstances. She was reluctant to wake from them and sought them eagerly whenever she closed her eyes. The only ones she didn’t welcome were the visions of water, of running rivers and flowing fountains. They couldn’t slake her thirst no matter how openly she embraced them, and she resented her dream self for unfailingly seeking that quenching promise.
Tormented by thirst and weakened with hunger, it was almost too much effort to approach the door when the familiar sounds came again. Daniel dragged himself over, leaving Vala propped against the wall where she lay. If she canted her head, she could just make him out, backlit against the growing illumination.
Her head swam in anticipation of the water, her pulse throbbing painfully behind dry and swollen eyes. The empty skin was pulled from the hatch with a thwap of leather on metal. What a sound. What a beautiful, beautiful sound.
But rather than return it, the men kept it. She heard the staccato impact of fingers punching buttons, and with a rusty scrape, the door ground slowly open.
Daniel shuffled backwards automatically as light flooded the room, and she struggled upright to join him at his side. They shielded their eyes in unison against the glare and squinted up at the two stooping figures silhouetted in the doorway.
“You,” one of them barked. He made some kind of gesture that was impossible to make out against the dazzling light.
“Uh,” Daniel began, having to stop and swallow to find his voice. He didn’t need it.
One of the men bent low and entered the cell, and a bruising grip snared Vala’s upper arm. Before it occurred to her to struggle, she was pulled forcefully towards the door, her knees catching painfully along every imperfection on the floor.
She felt Daniel lunge for her and wrap his hand in the fabric of her jacket before she was yanked from him.
“Wait,” he rasped urgently, “where are you taking her? Don’t--”
The snap and buzz of some kind of charge cut him off abruptly, and Vala had time see him jerk back before the cell door clanged shut behind her. The second guard tucked the pain stick back into its belt holster as he moved to take up her other side, and together they dragged her bodily down the tunnel.
Vala thought she could just make out the sound of boots striking metal in anger before she was hauled from earshot.
Part 6