He is no longer quiet.

He’s strong - he has always been strong - but the stoic silence he displayed at first has long since fled. He doesn’t scream, really - he yells, sometimes unintelligible things, sometimes curse words too harsh for young ears. At first he occupied his mind by coming up with wonderfully creative and insulting names for his torturers. Such sarcastic insolence has been gone for hours now.

Major Samantha Carter is curled up in her cell, arms wrapped around her knees, trying in vain to block out the sounds. She has cried until there are no tears left; now she sits, silent, empty, wishing only that she could do something to make it all stop.

If she looks up, Sam can clearly see her CO and close friend. She doesn’t look up because she doesn’t want to see him, lying in a pool of blood, his face twisted in agony.

He hasn’t told them anything, other than making a few suggestions about the moral character of each tormentor’s mother and giving advice on where exactly they should go to spend the rest of eternity.

Colonel Jack O’Neill yells again, and this time his cry of agony forms itself into a word not yet heard from his lips. “Carter! Carter ... ”

Perhaps, in his increasingly confused state, Jack actually thinks Sam can save him. Perhaps he simply needs someone, anyone, to comfort him.

Sam Carter’s heart splinters into pieces, and she starts rocking, slowly at first, then more rapidly. Don’t look up, she tells herself. Don’t crumble and tell them what they want to know just so they stop hurting him.

The fate of several worlds, balanced against the life of one man - seems like an obvious choice, doesn’t it? Sam has always thought so, but now - now black and white are fading into shades of gray in front of her eyes.

For a moment, the torture stops, and Jack’s hoarse breathing fills the room. He will die if tortured much longer, but that doesn’t matter to his captors. They can always bring him back, again and again. They can continue this until he is a vegetable, until he no longer has a voice with which to provide the answers they demand.

There is a snap, and Jack’s voice rises again. “Oh God - Carter!”

Her rocking ceases, and for a moment she doesn’t breathe. If only she could stop breathing, stop hearing, stop knowing what is happening right in front of her.

Then a thought strikes - if she can hear his every word so clearly, perhaps he can also hear her. There is so little she can do for him right now - if she can comfort him in some small way, it would be an improvement, however slight.

“Sir?” Her voice is hoarse and scratchy; she clears her throat and tries again. “Sir, it’s Carter. Can you hear me?”

“Carter?” His voice is a weak rasp; she can imagine his dark brown eyes searching for her and seeing only the twisted, soulless faces of his captors.

“I’m here, Sir.”

“Silence!” A large Jaffa shouts angrily. Carter ignores him, focusing her attention on her commanding officer.

“Carter, you ... all right?” Jack yelps as his words are punished swiftly. It’s getting hard to think, to focus; he clings desperately to Carter’s voice, to the knowledge that she is nearby.

“Yes, sir, I’m fine.” Carter isn’t going to tell him that everything will be okay, because this time, it isn’t true. She knows Jack. He wants honesty. He wants the truth - that’s the way he’s always been.

And this time, the truth is that they aren’t getting out.

Or is it?

One of Jack’s tormentors collapses to the floor, enveloped in blue light. The others start to turn, but before they have a chance to react, they go down as well. For a moment there is silence; then cautious footsteps approach.

The two familiar figures - the brown-haired, bespectacled archaeologist and the huge, expressionless Jaffa - have never been more welcome. Daniel Jackson crosses to Sam’s cell and lets her out as Teal’c kneels beside Jack O’Neill.

Once freed, Sam rushes to Jack’s side. He is in terrible shape; to keep herself calm, she focuses on his brown eyes. They move slowly, coming to rest on her face. He almost manages a patented Jack O’Neill grin. “Hey, Carter,” he wheezes. “The cavalry’s here.”

“So I see, Sir.” Sam returns the smile, although she really feels like crying again. It never fails to amaze her now a man in his fifties can manage to look so boyish.

“MajorCarter, we must make great haste in escaping from this place,” Teal’c puts in. Sam knows he’s right, but she holds her CO’s gaze for just a moment longer, and in a soft voice, she tells him the truth.

She tells him it’s going to be all right.