That Wasn't Begging, Was it?

By BadgerGater

E-mail: [email protected]

Category: Drama

Season/Sequel: anytime, but this fic fills in the back story for Hide, an earlier word of the month fic

Spoilers: None

Rating: PG, but it's got violence and bad language. This is Jack, after all.

Warnings: Language. Violence. Bad guys bent on damaging our beloved Colonel.

Summary: Jack waits for rescue.

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions; all the powers that be, not me; This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement intended. The story is the property of the author and may not be posted elsewhere without the author's consent, except the Word A Month site.

Author’s note: A WordAMonth fic: Beg. So okay, I'm a few words behind. Thanks, TK and Chris, for another thought provoking word.

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I'm a military man, have been for over 20 years now. There isn't much I haven't done, or wouldn't do, for the right reasons; things most ordinary people wouldn't dream of doing, things I'm proud of, things I'm ashamed of, things I'd never do again, things I wish I could take back and undo, things, just things, all kinds of things, anything and everything.

The one thing I'd never done was beg.

Lord, I wanted to. The words were there on the tip of my tongue, ready to be said, waiting to be said, screaming at me to be said.

I refused to say them. At least out loud.

It wasn't easy.

I had my lips scrunched tightly shut until my teeth ached and my jaw felt like it was going to crack, but I wasn't going to give in.

I was afraid to say them silently to myself, to even think them, because they might escape past my lips. They might. I didn't have much control left, but I had to hold onto what little I had. I had to hold on to something. I had to keep some part of my pride intact, because it was all that was holding me together. This was my line in the sand. I was not going to beg, no matter how desperate I was.

And I was desperate, as desperate as I've ever been in my life.

I've got no one to blame but myself, for getting myself into this. I egged him on, like I always do,

because I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

Oh Eglan here said he'd make me beg, and I sneered at him and said "ya think?" and even if he was one beer short of a six pack in the brains department, he sure as hell knew what the look meant.

I'd challenged him.

He made it personal, him versus me. And when he's got the chains, the tools, and the dozen guys with the weapons backing him up and I've got, well, not a damn thing except my determined attitude, the odds don't look good.

Then again, if he kills me, I won't be doing any begging, will I?

So I win.

Except dead Colonels who get dead proving they won't beg for a thing, don't win anything but a flag draped empty casket and six feet of good American dirt.

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Let me make this perfectly clear.

I ain't gonna beg.

Holler maybe.

Curse. Moan. Groan. Complain. Whine. Whimper.

But I will *not* beg. Those sons of bitches in Iraq couldn't make me do it, and Hathor couldn't make me do it, and Apophis couldn't make me do it on Netu, even with that damn Blood of Sokar stuff. So this guy won't make me, either.

Funny, for me, a guy who likes to talk a lot, sometimes I just don't want to say anything at all.

I struggled once more, tugging at my wrists. I was tied to a t-shaped frame, hands pulled high and wide over my head, the rough metal cuffs digging deeper into my bloodied wrists with every movement. Egghead strolled up to me out of the darkness and I glared at him in defiance, but all he did was wordlessly move around behind me and slice through the fabric of my shirt, leaving me bare to the waist.

Oooh, now he was trying the silent treatment on me. That wasn't going to work either. I don't scare easy.

He walked away and came back with a tiny little thing, a rod, like one of those pointy things teachers use, about a foot and a half long and about twice as big around as a pencil. Didn't look too scary, not then. Not until I watched him take that little thing and touch it to the wood of the post I was tied to. There was a hiss, and a thin tendril of smoke curled up from the blackened spot on the wood.

Oh, shit.

Eggplant smiled.

I glared.

"Tell me who you are."

"No."

He touched that thing to my back, low, just above my waist and a couple inches to the left of my backbone.

"Ow!" I jerked, just about pulling my shoulders out of their sockets.

The smell of burnt flesh, my own burnt flesh, made me want to throw up.

"Tell me who you are," he snapped.

I swallowed the bile and bared my teeth at Eggshells. "No."

He touched that hot stick to my back again, right next to the other spot.

I gasped. Damn, that thing hurt. I straightened my sagging knees and smiled at Eggsucker. "You know, you should be more careful with that thing. You could hurt somebody with that."

Wordlessly, the son of a bitch stuck that thing into my back, hard.

"Bite me," I hissed, as my skin sizzled.

Very, very softly and distinctly he repeated, "Tell me who you are, or I will remove your skin one piece at a time until you beg for the chance to tell me everything I want to know."

"Kiss my ass...ahhhh." Everything went sort of gray and shimmery while that hot poker burnt off another chunk of my skin.

"Tell me!"

I sucked in a deep breath, bit my lip, and said, quite clearly, "Fuck you."

Guess some words are understood no matter what planet you're on. His eyes flashed and he jabbed me with that hot poker again.

Groaning is not begging, you know that, don't you?

He asked the same question once more, using his little branding iron thingy for emphasis.

I once again declined to answer.

He touched that hot thing to my back, and when I didn't answer him, we repeated the whole fun little game over and over again.

Ever been skinned alive? Boiled in oil? Me neither, but I imagine that's what it would feel like, like that hot iron toasting my skin, a square inch at a time.

About the tenth or twelfth or thirty-fourth time, I'd lost count somewhere along the way, he came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to tell him anything. I could see it in his eyes. But he didn't quit, he just kept it up, because by then it was no longer about torture to get information it was about torture for the sake of saving face.

Neither one of us was going to yield.

Finally, as you might expect, I was the one who lost. Or maybe not.

I passed out.

Can't beg while your unconscious.

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I woke up wondering vaguely what that awful smell was, the sickly sweet burnt stench that was threatening to make me lose my lunch, if I'd had any lunch, or breakfast for that matter.

And then I remembered, it was the lovely odor of fried human flesh. My own.

Ewww.

My next recollection was just exactly how my flesh had gotten burnt like overdone bacon, and then I really did want to puke, because I remembered my pal Egghead and his lovely little hot spike doohickey.

I hadn't opened my eyes yet, didn't want to, because I knew the view wouldn't have changed. I was still hanging off that post like a flag at half mast, and across from me were the bodies of the villagers who'd been captured with me. Engelburt had arranged them just so I could watch as each of them had been killed. I hadn't been silent then, nope. I'd yelled, cursed, threatened what I'd do to him when I got free; I'd fought futilely against the chains until the blood ran warm and sticky from my wrists and down my arms.

At least my team wasn't there. Daniel, Sam, Teal'c, they'd been at the temple while I'd been visiting the tribal elders. Eggcarton hadn't said a word about them, so my bet was that they hadn't been captured. And if they were free, they'd be coming for me. All I had to do was hold on.

Sounds simple.

Hold on.

Hard to hold on when you can't even feel your hands anymore, when your arms are numb from shoulder to fingertips because your weight has been hanging off them for a couple of hours now. Maybe more. Hard to keep track of the time when you're unconscious more often than not. Unconscious, though, does have its advantages. Can't feel the hurt. Can't feel the worry. Can't say anything, much less give in and beg for water or plead to be cut down and left alone.

Even now, awake, I wasn't going to do that.

I'm perverse that way. Perverse not perverted, okay? Perverse. Determined. Stubborn. Headstrong. Recalcitrant. Intractable. Wayward. Obstinate. Noncompliant. Bet Carter and Daniel would be surprised I even know big words like that, big words that mean bullheaded, dogged and downright dig in my heels plain old flat old refusing.

All my life, I have objected to people trying to make me do things I didn't want to do. Surprises you I'd join the military then, right? Surprised me, too, sort of. Seems like I spend a lot of my life disobeying orders. Guess that's because people who have no right to order me around have a penchant for well, trying to order me around. Nasty folks like Apophis and the Tollan and the NID.

Bastards.

See, here I've spent, what, 6 or 7 minutes occupying myself by thinking about this stuff. Time has passed. Every minute that passes means it's a minute closer to the cavalry riding in to the rescue. Every minute survived is a minute closer to survival.

I wish they'd hurry. I'm getting sick of hanging around here. Chuckle. Hanging around. Good one, Jack. Whoa, getting a little loopy are we? A little off track? A little delirious? Could be the heat. Could be the pain. Could be the sorry son of a bitch who keeps poking me with that flesh melting laser pointer thingy. I just wish he'd crawl back under whatever rock he's crawled out from under. "Bastard."

"Ahhhh." Shit, that hurt. I was doing such a good job of ignoring him that I'd sort of forgot he was there. Guess I lost my concentration. See, if I concentrate hard enough on other stuff, I can't feel what he's doing. I go away. Not physically, mentally. It's a trick I learned a long time ago, in Special Ops training actually. Perfected the technique with a few months of practice in that nice little resort I visited in Iraq a decade ago.

The truth is, once your body gets beyond a certain point, a certain threshold of pain and exhaustion, you can just make the real world go away. Like magic. Abracadabra. Drift off into your own safe, happy little world, far away. No pain. No misery. No nasty little tyrants with smokin' hot branding irons making nice neat round burn patterns on your skin.

Hard part is, sooner or later you've got to come back, back to a world of hurt.

The cavalry has pretty lousy timing this time. Must have really, really slow horses. If I survive this, I'm going to buy them faster horses.

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"You will tell me what I want to know."

"I'm not gonna tell you squat." Hey, haven't I said that before? Yeah, sure, I did. But well, a good line shouldn't be wasted.

"Tell me who you are, Stranger."

Stranger's in the Night. Truth is stranger than fiction. Dr. Strangelove. Stranger in a Strange Land. People are Strange.

"You will tell me how to operate the Great Gateway!" Egghead shouted.

"Go to Hell." I could show him the way. I've already been there. Course, it wasn't really hell, just hellish. Netu. Nasty place. Oh, wait, it's not there anymore. No more hell. Guess I'm safe, then, 'cause sure as shooting I'm on my way to hell, going to hell in a hand basket.

What's a hand basket?

----------------

Is that me moaning?

Crap.

Well, okay, moaning is okay. Just so long as there's no begging. Have to be able to form words in order to beg. Good thing. Words are beyond me at the moment...

//******************\\

Teal'c crept cautiously into the darkened village, past the rows of silent huts. There were posts set up in the village square, dozens of them, a body suspended from each post.

Despair clutched at him. All the bodies he had checked were dead, long gone into the hereafter. Had their rescue mission been too late?

And then, in the eerie darkness, he heard it, a small sound, a familiar voice. "I think we have found O'Neill."

Daniel was looking around in confusion. "Where?" There was both worry and hope in his question.

"There. Ahead," the Jaffa whispered, moving softly in the velvet night.

As they grew closer, Daniel could hear the sound better. Not that it made sense, it made no sense in fact, but he followed Teal'c toward the center of the square, and the source of the familiar words.

Mumbled, slurred, barely audible and nearly indistinguishable.

"What is he saying?"

Daniel swallowed. "Words. To a song."

"Whose broad stripes and bright stars...."

"They are familiar," said Teal'c softly.

"Our national anthem," Daniel whispered.

"Through the paralyzed...perilous night..."

"He is over there..." Teal'c pointed.

The cracked voice mumbled on. "O'er the ramparts we watched.."

"O'Neill, we are here."

The voice didn't stop. "Were so gallantly steaming-- streaming."

Daniel reached out to touch the dimly lit form.

At the contact, Jack spasmed, moaning.

Jackson pulled back his hand, realizing it was sticky and wet. What had they done to him? Oh God. Blood. So much blood.

"And the rockets red glare..."

As Teal'c reached up to cut the Colonel down, Daniel eased his hands against O'Neill's shoulders to catch him, the mumbled words still sounding in his ear. "Jack, easy, we're here, we've got you."

"The bombs bursting in air..."

"Jack, we're here. Jack," he was getting scared. "Jack, come on, talk to me."

Eyes opened slowly, white teeth suddenly flashing in a smile that quickly disappeared. "Oh, hi, Daniel? Daniel, I can't remember all the words, do you know all the words?"

"Don't worry about the words, Jack, we'll practice later."

"Good." O'Neill's eyes closed again. "Is that Teal'c with you? The cavalry made it?"

"Yes. We got here as quick as we could. We'll have you free in a minute."

At Teal'c's nod, Daniel covered the Colonel's eyes as the Jaffa used one of the small explosive charges to burn through the links of chain holding the cuffs binding O'Neill. The Colonel's wrists, still bearing the heavy metal cuffs, were free as Teal'c carefully pulled the chain through the loops. Gently then, the big alien lowered the man's arms.

Daniel saw O'Neill bite his lip as his hands were moved, excruciating movement after God only knew how many hours. He could see the muscles in Jack's shoulders bunching and twitching, even as Daniel put his own jacket over his friend's bare back. O'Neill's already pale face went impossibly whiter and he bit back a moan as he slumped to his knees.

Daniel cradled his friend and cursed softly.

//******************\\

I thought they were figments of my imagination, I really did. Didn't believe they were real until Daniel's hand touched my back. It hurt but it also felt good, grounded me in reality. They were real. They were here. They'd come for me. They'd get me home and everything would be okay. I didn't have to go away any more. I could stay right here, with them.

My arms felt dead and wooden, useless numb things, until Teal'c freed my wrists. My dead-weight appendages dropped like stones and I bit my lip to keep from shrieking because son of a bitch, that hurt!! Muscle spasms raced across my back, neck, shoulders, and up my tingling arms as I collapsed into a heap, strong arms, Daniel's strong arms, catching me.

Something touched my lips, and I jerked away, and then Daniel's soft voice was soothing my fears.

"Here, drink." Water splashed against my cracked and bloody lips, water, cool refreshing, wet, water, and I savored the feel of each drop in my mouth, letting it soak into the dry tissues in my throat. I'd have sucked the whole canteen dry if Daniel had let me.

I made a grab for the canteen, for more, but my arms flopped uselessly, uncontrollably.

"Easy, Jack. Not so much so fast."

"More." Asking for more wasn't begging was it?

"In a few minutes."

His hands were cool on my back, his shirt rough and scratchy where my face rested against the pockets and seams of his vest.

It felt good, feeling something real and solid, something of home.

A dark shadow bent down from above. "Can you walk, O'Neill?"

"Oh, sure." Been doing that since I was a month shy of a year old, so I've had a bit of practice. Walking. Simple thing. Stand upright, put one foot a head of the other, shift weight, propel your body off in some direction you're aiming to go.

Sounded simple. Turned out to be impossible, at least on my own. Couldn't get upright, couldn't stay upright, and couldn't move a lick. That was the point at which I heard Teal'c apologize, and then I was being lifted over his shoulder, head hanging down his back.

I'd have thrown up if there was anything in my stomach. But there wasn't.

Knowing I wasn't going to be helping anybody with anything, I took the easy way out. Passed out again.

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I woke up somewhere other than Eggsucker's place. That was all that mattered. I didn't know where I was and I didn't care where I was, as long as no one was peeling off any more of my skin with that branding iron thingy. I was tucked into a sleeping bag, warm and dry. My hands were no longer useless, wooden clubs, but tingling bundles of raw nerves. I took one look at them, at the raw, scored flesh of my wrists and the bruised, swollen tissue covering the bones, the grotesquely sausage shaped fingers, and figured I didn't need to see any more. Looking wasn't going to change anything.

I was lying on my stomach, so I tried to roll over. Big mistake. Pain erupted all across my shoulders and throbbed deep in my back.

"Lie still, Jack."

"Hmmmm."

"I cleaned and dressed the wounds on your back. It's all we can do for now, until we get you back to the infirmary. Teal'c is checking to make sure the gate is clear, and Sam's on watch. We'll have you home in no time."

No time, show time, a lifetime, feeling like this.

"Daniel..."

"Want the morphine now, Jack?"

"Yeah."

That wasn't begging was it? Answering yeah was only agreeing, consenting, allowing, conceding to the need. Not begging. Never begging, not even begging for relief.

I felt the tiny bite of the needle in my bicep and soon a slow warmth began to spread through me, dulling the ache, easing the muscle spasms, breaking down the walls of my resolve. Once more I drifted, a different kind of drift, this time, a peaceful, healing, lazy feeling, like sinking into the clouds.

I let my eyes slide closed, reassured by the touch of Daniel's long, gentle fingers on my wrist.

No need to beg for anything now. I had all I needed.

I smiled.

See, I'd won.

I'd outlasted the bastard.

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finis