TITLE: Never Safe

AUTHOR: SelDear

EMAIL: SelDear

SUMMARY: He is never safe.

CATEGORY: Angst, Vignette

SPOILERS: Vague S7 ones.

STATUS: complete

SERIES: Abused

RATING: R

CONTENT WARNING: Beating, abuse, torture, mention of rape but nothing graphic.

DATE: March 24th, 2003

ARCHIVED: Jackfic, SJD - anywhere else please ask

DISCLAIMER:

(To the tune and rhythm of "His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad." - for my sister Louisa!)

These characters don't belong to this fic-writer,
And this line of writing don't pay;
I wish they were mine - they're really divine,
To archive, please ask me, okay?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I really don't know where this one came from - it just appeared in my brain. There may be a sequel - I'm not sure if a) I can, b) I should.

* * * Never Safe * * *

They always come for him.

Use and abuse.

He no longer knows who they are. He no longer cares who they are.

There were people once who cared.

Not anymore.

They abandoned him.

More than the ribbon device, that thought brings pain with it. The energy of his life, the meaning of his captivity, his will, is sucked out by the strength of that thought. The ribbon device is a mere inconvenience beside that cold, cold fact.

He is alone.

And he is never safe.

He is the punching bag for a ship full of Jaffa. Every bone in his body has been broken, every fear he has ever had has been whispered in his ear, every muscle has been bruised at some time or another.

He is the enemy upon which they take out their frustration and fear when they cannot take it out on their fellow Jaffa or the Goa'uld who commands them.

He is the *Tau'ri* they captured, and which they hold at the command of their master.

Their master has no particular use for this human, not beyond the entertainment of his Jaffa.

And so the prisoner remains.

He no longer fights back. The energy of defiance went into keeping himself alive and sane. Now that his sanity is lost, all his efforts go into staying alive.

He's not sure why. Death would be a release.

But there are things he has to do. People he has to see again. Things he has to say - if he could only remember them.

And if he dies, they will go unsaid.

He's too stubborn to die.

Is the cost of life - of survival - too high? Maybe.

He doesn't even remember his name.

There are people in the dreams that he thinks might be memories - people who say things to him, who look to him for leadership and guidance. A woman smiles at something he says. A man rolls his eyes and turns away. A Jaffa - Jaffa? - raises an eyebrow in query. A man pauses in surprise, his hand stopping mid-gesture. An older man regards him with mingled affection and respect.

He doesn't know who they are anymore.

These are the people he needs to see before he dies. The people he wants to know again - the people he wants to be known by.

These are the people who abandoned him to this hellish life - or death.

The Jaffa use the pain stick on him. It burns his flesh like an electric shock, like a cattle prod. And as they hold it down to his skin, he feels the pain spread like a cancer through his body. Incandescent agony at the point where the device touches him, and little pools of pain as his nervous system takes up the cry.

He holds out against screaming as long as he can.

It isn't very long.

His body has been broken, time and time again. Each time, he awakens to the bright glow of the sarcophagus and a new life of brutality.

He thinks they might have raped him, but the memories are blurred and he won't look at them too closely for fear of what he might discover.

And there is no surcease from the endless, nagging ache of his body and his mind.

Today is no different. They use the pain stick on his spine, and the agony spirals through his gut and up his nerves, jostling its way into his brain and eating into his mind. He cannot think, cannot retreat; there is only the pain - and, in the end, his own voice screaming for surcease.

The pain goes on...and on...and on...

He can only endure. And he is not sure how much longer he can endure this.

Barriers crumble, memories fade, and the core of who he was erodes; slowly, slowly. Pride, honour, joy, laughter, delight, friendship, belief...

Those things are gone. They are no longer a part of his life.

So when he hears the sounds of firing zats, and the chattering sound of...something...he fears who comes to take him from this place.

The pain stops as the stick falls from his ribs - blessed relief mitigated by fear of what comes next.

What comes next surprises him.

His hands are freed from the restraints as someone speaks to him in an urgent, worried voice.

He does not care about the words. He cares that his hands are free again - that he is free to retaliate.

And retaliate he does.

He lashes out, catching the first one across the face with vicious fists. The man falls back with a cry. The second man in the cell is stronger and faster; he seizes his hands so he cannot punch them. A Jaffa - but one who doesn't belong here.

"Daniel? Teal'c?" comes a voice from down the corridor, female, commanding. "Have we got him?"

The man on the floor hauls himself up. "Uh, yeah. We've got him. Kind of."

"He does not recognise us, Major Carter."

There as a pause as he struggles futilely against his new captors. Then the voice comes again. Tired. Familiar? "Disable him, Teal'c. We'll worry about the damage later."

He twists out of the hands of the Jaffa, leaping for the door, seeking freedom as the men behind him shout. But a man has appeared in the door way, and they knock heads, stumbling back from each other. "Colonel..." The man stares at him, open face unable to hide his shock.

"Sam, you're going to have to buy us some time," yells one of the men behind him. "He's very suspicious..."

A woman appears in the doorway, edging between the stunned man and the frame. She looks tired. Haunted. Her gaze takes him in and there is pity and compassion in her eyes. Sadness. But she doesn't speak to him. "Daniel, we don't *have* any time! We either all of us leave with the Colonel unconscious or we're going to be permanent guests of Ba'al!"

There's the sound of Jaffa approaching - their footsteps clear and heavy on the floor. She takes a deep breath and closes her hands around the item in her arms. "Jonas, you help me hold them off. Teal'c, take the Colonel. Daniel, radio the peltac and see if there's a ringroom around." Her trust in the men around him is great - she doesn't wait to see her orders carried out, but is gone in an instant. The man in the doorway grimaces and heads after her, and then there is the sound of weapons fire - staff weapons and the chatter of...something else. Something he almost remembers...

Staring at the door, trying to hold onto the memory, he doesn't hear the conversation behind him.

"Do you need me to hold him, Teal'c?"

"I do not, Daniel Jackson."

There is pain in his skull.

There are hands under his arms.

There is darkness.

When he wakes up again, he is somewhere else.

And the people from his fragmented memories are around him.

He fears them, hates them, hungers for them.

They left him behind. They came looking for him. They found him.

His body is refreshed and nobody beats him. He sleeps the whole night through and wakes up in a place that doesn't stink of his own urine and faeces. They grant him privacy and showers.

They talk to him as if he is someone else. Their words are of things he doesn't understand anymore - if he ever understood them in the first place.

They give him names. Colonel. Jack. O'Neill. Sir.

They name themselves. Jonas. Daniel. Teal'c. Sam. Dr. Fraiser. General Hammond.

They tell him he is safe. Over and over, they tell him he is safe.

When he wakes in the night, screaming at his dreams, he is safe.

When he sleeps on the clean, sterile linen, he is safe.

When they come to see him with worried eyes, he is safe.

But when they are gone, he curls in on himself in the room that is grey and the bed that is white and the clothes that are a strange minty-green.

He is not safe.

He is never safe.

* FIN *

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