Magical Cage 9
Rated TEEN
Jack watched Xander crawl in the lean to with Willow, their whispers so low that Jack couldn't even catch a word of it. However, he had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about. The problem was that Jack had no idea how to get Spike. Maybe if Jaffa hadn't taken the shuttle…
Jack snorted at his own foolishness. They couldn't go up against Wraith without serious firepower, which meant they weren't going up against the Wraith at all. Now if Jack only knew how Xander would react to that news, he'd be a lot happier.
"Hey," Daniel said as he dropped down next to Jack, holding out his canteen.
"Daniel."
"So, what bug crawled up your butt?" Daniel asked, waiting until Jack had the canteen tilted before asking. There might have been a day when that would have caused Jack to choke, but that day was long since past. He finished drinking and handed the canteen back.
"Take your pick… the dimension, the Goa'uld, the Wraith, the fact that I'm missing the Simpsons and I didn't set the VCR."
"You'll catch it in reruns."
"I don't even know if this reality has Simpsons."
"Tragedy," Daniel agreed with a nod. Once upon a time, Jack could get Daniel worked up over his ability to focus on the trivial, but now he just stared into the dark.
"Daniel, how much of this are you buying?" Jack asked after a few minutes. Daniel often played the idealist of the group, but he had an insight on strangers that Jack trusted, and people didn't come any stranger than Xander and Willow.
"I don't know," Daniel shrugged.
"You're not helping here, Danny boy."
Jack looked over, and Daniel was watching the lean-to where Xander and Willow slept, or more likely, conspired ways to try and get up to the Wraith mother ship.
"Were we ever that young and that screwed up?" Daniel asked.
"I was," Jack said. "But back then the only thing I had to worry about was getting caught with my socks not folded and losing off-base privileges."
"I was trying to ignore my college roommate who would get drunk and pretend to aim his vomit at my books," Daniel offered.
"Sounds like a man after my own heart." Jack smiled when Daniel aimed a punch at his arm.
"How's your hand?" Daniel asked.
"Hurts like hell."
"You're falling apart at the seams, Jack."
"We don't have a way up to that ship," Jack said, not even trying to connect the dots on their disjointed conversation. Daniel would know what he was talking about.
"I know. You wouldn't have left him if there were another way out."
"Fuck," Jack swore. Silence followed and Jack scrubbed his face with his hand. Night insects chittered in the woods, reassuring Jack that no one was out there.
"I wish I could believe that. I really didn't want Spike around," Jack finally admitted.
"I know you Jack O'Neill. You wouldn't have left him if you had any choice at all. You had to get yourself and Xander out of there."
"Yeah, I did," Jack agreed. "But I was so focused on Xander—" Jack stopped. Daniel could fill the rest in. "But he's not as helpless as I thought up there," Jack admitted.
"Willow told Carter that Xander inherited some memories."
Jack looked at Daniel suspiciously.
"You really don't want to hear the details, it includes cursed clothing and evil magicians and a Halloween spell where Xander became Special Forces." Daniel shook his head. "I didn't even dare write that one down because MacKenzie would lock me in another little padded room if he ever found the journal," Daniel laughed, but it was a bitter sound.
"Yeah, that's why I have Carter rewrite my reports. Less chance of getting sent to the loony bin where some people claim I should have landed years ago," Jack nodded.
"Sam rewrites your reports?" Daniel sounded surprised, but Jack just shrugged.
"Demons will become life forms from another dimension or planet or something. She'll probably turn vampire into humanoid life form of indeterminate origin who feeds on hemoglobin. Hey, she's managed to make me sound sane for a couple of years now. But you're right; I don't want to hear about magicians because some things defy even Carter's ability to explain them away."
"I'll keep that in mind," Daniel huffed, his own version of a chuckle. "But Jack, as much as Xander has these soldier memories, he's not a soldier."
"He does a good impression," Jack pointed out.
"Yeah, he does."
"So, how much of this are you really buying… the magic, the way Xander flips between class clown and soldier, the vampire stuff?"
"My gut says they're telling the truth, but whether or not they believe their own story still doesn't help you, does it?" Daniel said as he looked at Jack.
"No, it doesn't," Jack had to concede. "Magic, dimensions, gods. This is sounding weird, even to me, and I've done weird."
"Done it, had it done to you, have the t-shirt in the bottom of your dirty clothes hamper?" Daniel suggested with a smile.
"In several colors," Jack admitted. "And you've been right there for the ride. But the fire starting bit was a little impressive."
"You weren't impressed when I did it." Daniel teased. Jack gave a small laugh. He really hadn't been overly impressed with Daniel's attempts to discover the meaning of the universe. Daniel had sat in the sand pit with a monk, focusing on learning to control the elements while Jack tried to figure out how to keep them from being killed by Jaffa. That pretty much described their relationship. Danny dragged them out so far on limbs that Jack woke up surprised to find he wasn't dead some days, and then Daniel had this absolute faith that Jack would just always fix things in the end. Some days it terrified Jack.
"You didn't do it, Oma Whoever did. Besides, you started a fire in the middle of a sand pit. For all I knew, you had a canister of propane hidden under there." Jack leaned back on the log and stared at the stars.
"So, Oma Desala or me starting fires is not impressive, but Willow is?" Daniel asked. He shifted closer on the tree trunk.
"If she's human, it's impressive," Jack agreed, and suddenly he wasn't sure that she was human.
"I don't think she fits the profile of an Ancient," Daniel said softly, as though reading Jack's mind. "I don't think of ascended beings as quite so…"
"Sophomoric?" Jack supplied the missing word as he looked over at Daniel with a grin.
"I would have gone for enthusiastic."
"Whatever is going on, there are too many sharks in the water for us to keep out of their way. The Wraith don't just want to just conquer us, they see us as food."
"Which would explain the village disappearing in a flurry of lights," Daniel said, his eyes glazing over for a moment, and Jack knew his archeologist was feeling the lost lives. He might use a gun and effectively, if not cheerfully, shoot Jaffa, but the deaths of villagers who lived and died truly believing that the Goa'uld were gods would always make him go quiet.
"And while I'm not surprised Sokar and Apophis are still around since I've gotten used to dead Goa'uld refusing to stay dead, Ra being back in business really hacks me off."
"So, we try to get through to the Nox homeworld?"
"It's the best chance we have right now."
"And why does that not make me feel any better?" Daniel asked with a grim huff of laughter.
"Get some sleep, Danny," Jack ordered as he reached over and gave Daniel a light slap on the knee. "Tomorrow we'll start sorting all this out."
"Get me up for second watch," Daniel said as he abandoned the log where Jack sat and went to the lean-to where Carter had already crawled in. Teal'c sat on a bit of earth on the far side of the camp, sitting on the ground with his staff weapon in front of him as he kel'no'reemed.
Jack watched Daniel disappear. One way or another, he'd get his team home.
Morning came with a growling in his stomach, an ache in his hand, and a headache that had given birth to neck and back pain overnight. Jack forced his body into motion, crawling out of the lean-to only to find Daniel's back blocking his exit.
"Move it," Jack said as he prodded his archeologist's back.
"Nice. I get up, fix you breakfast, and that's the thanks I get," Daniel complained as he shifted. Jack wasn't even all the way out when Daniel thrust a protein bar at him.
"Thanks, Jack offered as he took the bar and struggled to his feet.
"So, what's on the agenda today?" Xander asked. Without the P90, he looked like a kid who hadn't gotten enough sleep and who badly needed a haircut.
"We try to get to the Gate," Jack said.
"Okay, we get to the Gate, and then what? We beam up to the ship?" Xander asked. Jack traded looks with Daniel as he tried to think of an answer for that.
"We are going up to the ship, right? I mean, what about Spike?" Xander demanded.
Jack wanted to ask, 'what about him,' but he knew exactly what Xander was thinking. "The Nox have resources—we'll ask them for help," Jack explained calmly.
"We're leaving Spike?" Willow asked, her voice soft.
"No way," Xander insisted. The childlike quality Jack had noticed just minutes earlier disappeared under so much anger that Jack was just a little glad that Xander didn't have the P90. Anger and guns didn't mix.
"We'll come back when we have more—"
"First it was, 'We'll go back for him,' and now we seem to be saying we're going to run for another planet, and another planet is not going back. How can another planet be going back?" Xander demanded.
"And how do you suggest we get up there?" Jack shouted back. He didn't like this any more than Xander, but there were limits to how many miracles that he could pull off. They got off the ship once, and that was pushing the limits of their luck.
"I'm voting for running around in the open flapping our arms like chicken. I'm thinking they would beam us up again." Xander crossed his arms angrily.
"And what would we do from there?"
"Hey, you just asked for a plan to get up there, and my plan does that," Xander insisted mulishly.
"Daniel, deal with this," Jack said. He hadn't even peed yet. He did not have the patience to try and calm Xander down. Shoving the protein bar in a pocket, he turned his back to the rough camp as he picked a tree that looked ready for watering. Forgetting his injured hand, Jack flinched when he tried to pull himself out right-handed. Cursing softly, he switched to his left.
"Don't walk away from me," Xander followed, and Jack closed his eyes against the frustration.
"Daniel," Jack called, his voice warning Daniel to get the boy away from him.
"Xander, we have no way to actually help Spike. If the Nox are willing to help, they have advanced technology—"
"And if they don't help? Because you guys were not so quick with the assuming they'd help last night. So, if they won't help, we'll just settle down on some other planet and leave Spike up there?"
"I understand your frustration," Jack said as he tucked himself back in. A man should not have to defend himself while peeing.
"No, you don't. You military types are all the same, the needs of the many over the needs of the few or the one," Xander snapped, and Jack opened his mouth, not quite sure how to react to having movie quotes thrown at him in the middle of the fight.
"We don't—"
"There is no 'we' here," Xander interrupted. "If you won't help get Spike back, we are going to do it on our own." Xander turned to Willow, who blinked owlishly.
"Aren't we Will."
Willow's mouth opened and closed desperately as she looked from one person to another. "We're a we, totally a we. And we'll get Spike back." She paused before continuing in a soft, apologetic tone. "We just might want to stay with the people with the guns."
Jack could see the fury drain from Xander, replaced with something darker and far more fatalistic.
"You do that," Xander said angrily as he started off through the woods. Daniel looked toward Jack with a desperate look, and Jack shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't the kid's keeper.
"I should go after him, he's going to get lost in the woods, and this isn't part of the plan. He's just upset." Willow made apologies as she edged toward Xander. With a last look toward them, Willow turned and dashed toward Xander.
"Sir, you aren't really going to leave them out here?" Carter asked, and Jack could hear the edge of steel that warned him that his second in command just might not go along with that plan.
"Oh, for crying out loud. They're adults," Jack defended himself. "Unreasonable adults." Unfortunately, he wasn't convincing his team of that any more than he was convincing himself. Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"Fine, I'll go after them," Jack groused as he headed through the trees after the two of them. He hadn't gone more than fifty feet when he found Xander sitting on the ground at the base of a thick tree, his head resting on his knees so that his hair hid him from sight. Willow crouched next to him, her hand tracing circles on his back as she muttered something to him softly.
"Hey," Jack said, completely at a loss for words. Willow looked up, her eyes swollen with tears, and he felt even more useless. He should have sent Daniel; Daniel would know what to say.
"We get the whole thing with not being able to go up against a whole mother ship," Willow said softly, but Xander exploded up off the ground.
"No, no we don't," he nearly yelled as he backed away from both Jack and Willow. "We went up against the whole government. We went up against a god. We went up against a giant snake that nearly ate graduation, but because these are aliens instead of demons, you're suddenly all okay with leaving Spike… again." Xander snapped the words out, and Willow flinched back, tears now dripping down.
Jack knew the kid well enough to know that he'd be sorry for those words later, but right now, his fury still ruled him so that he turned and started crashing through the underbrush in an attempt to get away. Willow gave a little sob.
"I'll bring him back. Head back to camp," Jack said before he took after Xander. The way the kid was going, he might as well run up and down waving his arms.
"Xander!" Jack called. "Soldier! Stand down," he tried, but Xander ignored him. Jack leapt a log and ran a few steps so that he could grab Xander's shirt and use that leverage to spin him around.
Xander spun harder than Jack intended, hitting a tree and then holding on to its branches as though he couldn't support his own weight. Twigs and a leave tangled in his hair, and he was breathing hard, harder than he should after a short jog through the woods.
"I'm a fucking hypocrite," Xander snapped, closing his eyes and letting his head thump back against the trunk of the tree. "I was always a big believer in blaming people who do a big nothing, but when Spike got captured, I did a big nothing. I ran my mouth… said that hey, vampires are bad, Spike's a vampire, therefore Spike's bad, and we shouldn't go worrying about the bad guys."
"Not bad logic," Jack offered as he struggled to keep up with the conversation. Obviously, Xander wasn't talking about Spike's latest capture.
"Yeah, fucking great logic, only I knew he wasn't like the others. Hell, I knew vampires still felt things, still felt their human bits, but I was just so damn tired of being low on the totem pole, and when Spike came around, he spent so much time pointing out that I was really worthless that when the government captured him again, I wasn't thinking bad guys and good guys, I was thinking that I just wanted the bastard out of my life."
Xander sank to the ground again, his shirt riding up as he slid down the rough bark. Jack looked around for a second, judging the cover and checking for enemy before he crouched next to him. Now the pieces were starting to make some sense. From the sounds of it, the NID, or their equivalent of it, had gotten their hands on Spike. Even with his own issues with Spike, Jack wouldn't wish that fate on the vampire.
"They hurt him," Jack said quietly and with a great deal of confidence. People like that always did hurt those who frightened them.
"They fucking tortured him," Xander said, a tremor going through his body. "We went in for someone else, a friend, and we found him. He begged me to stake him. Called me names just so that I would turn him to dust and not leave him there so they could keep—" Xander stopped, a sob breaking his words into random sounds that Jack couldn't even hope to decipher.
"It was my fucking fault. I did nothing. I can't do that again." Xander whispered the words, and Jack could hear the truth in them. The boy was near an edge psychologically. For the first time in his life, Jack wished he had MacKenzie around. Or maybe Sydney from MASH… that was more Jack's style of therapist. Some poker, some booze, and a little head shrinking on the side. Right now, he just had no idea what to do.
"You aren't leaving him. We're making a strategic retreat in order to gather resources," Jack said, appealing to the soldier in Xander.
"Feels a lot like leaving."
"And there's really not a choice here," Jack pointed out. Xander sighed and pushed himself up. Jack stood and watched the boy glue his emotions back together, struggling and sniffing as he tried to finger comb his hair.
"Yeah, not like I could do much. If Willow had her magic going, maybe we'd have a chance, but I'm just backup guy. Useless backup guy in this case," Xander said harshly. Before Jack had a chance to answer, he turned and lumbered back towards camp, not even trying to cover his tracks or keep quiet as he plodded through the woods.
Jack sighed. Fuck. Maybe Daniel could fix this because Jack sure had no idea what to say. He just had to get his people somewhere safe with food and shelter and time for some of the physical and psychological wounds to heal before they were all easy targets.