Coming Out of Exile: The Strength of A Father's Love
By Moon Mistress

Chapter Eleven

Greece
Zeus’ Dungeon

Nicholas spent half of their time there that day filling his Father in on everything that had been going on over the past four months including good old Uncle David’s trip to Sengul and the terms that had been laid out by the Ambassador for giving Earth the secret of turning water into naquada.  Daniel said nothing as he sat there listening trying to take it all in.  David went off world?  He must have been terrified of being discovered.  Was it possible that David was dead?  If so then Daniel wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Why would Kanan want Jack or Sam?

“Can he do it, Dad? Can he take over the Underworld from Uncle Hades?”

Daniel shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”  Sitting on the dusty floor he turned to his Son. “He’s not an Olympian so I can’t believe he was able to defeat Hades never mind that Kanan’s running things down there.”  What a fucking mess that could turn out to be!

“I wasn’t gonna do it, ya know.” Nick mumbled. “Trade Mom for Annie, I wouldn’t do that to her. I just wanted some more information, I just want to know where…”

Daniel reached out and patted his Son’s big knee. “It’s ok, Nick.  Your Mother would trade herself if she knew.”  But Calla must know that Annie was gone…if she was gone.  If so, what the hell did Kanan want with her?  Surely taking one of the children would have been to his better advantage than taking Annie.  Maybe he couldn’t get to the kids and had no choice but to take Nick’s wife. “If he’s got her we’ll get her back.” Looking up to the open windows covered by the heavy iron bars Daniel watched the last of the sunlight fade from the sky.  “It’s going to start again.” He said in a heavy voice.

“What is?”

Daniel pointed across the room to the cell nearest the one he’d been occupying. “Watch. You’ll see her.”

“See wh—“

Was someone crying?

Nick looked at his Father and then looked around the dreary room which would soon be completely dark other than what moon and starlight would come through the windows. Dad wasn’t crying but someone was very softly weeping.  It sounded like Amy like a little girl.  “Who’s there?” Nick said in a loud but not strong voice as he stood up on weak legs. Sitting on the hard cold stone ground the last few hours didn’t do him any good.  Finally he stopped looking around and instead turned his gaze to where his Father was pointing.  There she was, a little girl huddled in the corner of the cell.  “Where did she come from?”

“I told you this place is haunted,” Daniel said weakly and turned away from the sight of the little girl with her knees drawn up to chin rocking and crying in the cell.

With the last of the light tossing long shadows around the Dungeon Nick peered closer at her.  So little and all that red hair.  It couldn’t be.  “Is that Mom?”  He looked down at Daniel who was still sitting on the floor and watched him nod. “Why don’t you go to her?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried that?  She just sits there crying calling out for her ‘Poppa’ to come rescue her.”

Sure enough the crying little girl spoke. “Poppa! Poppa! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry…I’ll be good! I promise.”  She crawled to the bars on her hands and knees and grabbed them with grimy hands. “Grandfather!”  Little Callestah started pulling at the bars and then climbing them as she tried to free herself.  “I’M SORRY!” She screamed. Daniel covered his ears. “I’LL BE GOOD!”

With very small hesitant steps Nick walked over to her. “Mom?” He asked with much wonder in his voice and tried to touch her but, like Kanan earlier today, his hand went right through her. She didn’t even look at him. “Mom?  Callestah?” He said the second in a stronger voice but the girl in the cell slipped down the bars and to the floor where she crawled off to the far corner to huddle and weep some more.

“She can’t hear you.” Daniel said softly.  “She can’t see you, she’s just…she’s just…a memory…trapped here in this place.”

“Won’t she even answer you?”

“Nope,” Daniel said sadly, “she’s just a memory and she doesn’t know me yet. It’ll be a few more months before we meet for the first time.”  His eyes welled with tears as they did every single night he’d spent here watching her listening to her cry out for her Poppa.  No one ever came to her call…not one single time did any ghostly apparition appear to offer her comfort or food or drink or anything at all. Little Callestah just went on crying until she finally tired herself out somewhere near the wee hours of the morning. She’d fall asleep on the floor in a little ball sometimes she’d twitch in the night or cry out again in her sleep.  Before Nick could ask Daniel decided to tell him the story of just why his Mother was in that cell. “I guess that’s their idea of discipline or tough love or something.” Daniel finished.

“Christ, she wouldn’t even let you put us in a corner.” Nick mumbled as he sat on the floor next to his Father.

In the corner…yeah that was another story and one that it gave Daniel no pleasure to tell his Son but if Kanan was in charge of the Underworld then Nick had to know more about Naganti Kanan and his Cha’Dech than what he’d been able to guess at over the years.  He told of how Kanan always made Calla kneel in the corner of his bedroom and how he hardly ever let her up from there.  He told the real story of the ring and what it could do to her now that Daniel had that necklace made for her.  He only meant it as an anniversary present he never thought it would do her any harm. “That’s why she never let me put you or Cole in a corner for Time Out when you were little.” Spankings were most certainly out of the question no one raised a hand to her children.  “They’ll be here any minute now.”

Daniel’s words brightened Nick’s spirits for a moment. “Who? Who’s coming?”

“The rest of…them.” Daniel gestured off toward the rest of the room. “She’s always first and, I don’t know, about an hour or so after she appears the rest of them start to come.” He looked up at Nick. “They can’t hurt you, they won’t even know you’re here but they’re loud and smelly and…terrifying just the same.” A shiver went through him and Daniel wrapped his arms around his chest for warmth.

The scent of fire came first.  Some hardwood burning and filling Nick’s nose with an acrid smell that made him want to sneeze.  Then the fire pit in the middle of the room sprang to ghostly life.  The fire looked real it crackled and it had that smell but he was quite certain that if he neared it he would feel no heat and if he tried to touch it his hand would only pass through it. Another scent soon mixed with it; sweat. Another; fear. Finally a third; burning flesh.

The screams came next. They drowned out Little Callestah’s sobs as they echoed off the walls and made Nick want to cover his ears.  So many voices, so many people in pain it filled his big body with agony just listening to them.  After just a few moments Nick did cover his ears with his hands in a vain attempt to block out the howling of the tortured and the dying.

Finally the people appeared some in cells some hanging from the shackles on the far wall other strapped to torture tables and still others hung in the iron maidens around them.  Most of them were men though there were a few women here and they were being tortured in a manner quite different from their male counterparts. Nick couldn’t bear to watch.  He was far from a battle hardened soldier but Nick had been in his share of fire fights already and he’d tended the dead and the dying on distant worlds but never anything like this.

His ears met a scream that was too familiar to be ignored but he couldn’t look.  “What if we let them out?” Nick whispered through thin lips and a throat almost too dry to work.

“What?”

Nick shook the heavy key ring. “What if we unlock them? What if we let them out?”

Yeah…what if?

“Probably nothing, I told you they’re just memories though I suppose of them could be actual ghosts.”  He tried to keep his head low so he wouldn’t look at Little Callestah or Calla who was currently strapped to one of those tables.  If he looked up he’d see himself and David hanging from the shackles on the wall and, well, it just wasn’t a place Daniel wanted to visit.

“Yeah, well I’m gonna try it.” Nick hauled himself up to his big feet and walked around the room. Dad was right, not one of them noticed him at all.  He went up to a man who was currently (or had been depending on your point of view) being tortured with hot metal rods, Nick fumbled with the keys and after a few attempts slid the right one into the lock at the man’s left wrist. The shackle opened and so did the rest of them.  The tired man turned his head toward Nicholas and seemed to smile before he dissipated from view.

One less scream in the night.

Daniel sat there in amazement as one by one Nicholas let them all go including the memory of his Father, his Uncle David and his Adult Mother.  Little Callestah was last and Daniel insisted on being the one to unlock the door and set her free. “Call—Callestah,” he called softly, “can you hear me?”  Daniel slid the heavy iron key into the heavy iron lock. At first it wouldn’t turn to his command and frustration soon grew within him as he tried with all his remaining strength to turn it afraid the damn rusty thing would simply snap off in the lock.  “Ah! Goddamnit! Open!”  He pulled the key out and jammed it back into the lock.  The little girl on the floor stirred and at up. Was she looking at him?  “I’m gonna get you out of here.” Daniel whispered. “It’s all right now you don’t have to stay here anymore.”  She sat up, blinked her eyes and them rubbed them with the backs of her hands. He was almost certain that she saw him.   Please God, please let it turn.  This time when he twisted the key it turned easily in the lock and the old iron door swung open. “Come on, it’s all right, come on, honey, come out of there.”

Tired little girl eyes looked from him to Nicholas behind him and back again until they settled on the open door.  Little by little, not certain if she should trust them, she crawled toward it.  The two men backed away to show her they were not going to slam it in her face.  One hand out and then the other she stopped in the doorway with her eyes fixed to them.  Suddenly she sprung to her feet and began to dance around in a circle and she laughed…oh how she laughed! Daniel started to cry but before he knew it he was laughing too and so was Nicholas.  To Nick’s eyes she looked so much like Amy it was hard to believe it wasn’t the same little girl. Then she walked up to them, she stood there staring at them with wide eyes.  They stared down at and through her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome,” they said in unison and waited for her to dissipate as the others had but she did not.  Instead, in a burst of little girl energy she ran back into the cell.

“No!” Daniel said in a hurried voice but she turned around and blew them a kiss before she rose into the air and fled out into the night through the iron bars. Now only Daniel, Nicholas and the ghosts of the torturers remained here in the Dungeon. Since they had no chains they could not be freed and now they milled about aimlessly their purpose in life (or death) taken from them.

“That’s it!” Nick cried suddenly. “Oh God Mom, I love you! That’s it!”

“What’s what?” Daniel mumbled confused. “What are you talking about?”

Your strength is your own.  That’s what Mom said just before he left.  Nick walked into the cell and put his big hands on the old iron bars.  He looked out at the sea below them crashing against the rocks and the cliff.  It was a hell of a long way down but once they were clear of the Dungeon their gifts would return and they’d be able to teleport to Altair Ain or anywhere else.  If they couldn’t do it before they hit the water—possibly the rocks—surely their immortality would save them.  “Yep, we’re gonna get outta here in just jiff, Dad.  Just hold on two seconds.”  Nicholas grabbed one bar in each hand and struggled to pry them apart.  The old heavy iron creaked its protest but wouldn’t give. “Come on you bitch!” Nicholas shouted. “Open up!”  Pecs bulging beneath the black t-shirt and biceps straining to the limit he took in a deep breath and pulled harder.

“It’s never going to give,” Daniel lamented but still he hoped there was a chance. Nicholas did have almost super-human strength and if anyone could pull those bars apart it was him.

“Be quite, Dad.” Nick growled as he released the bars, took in a breath and got a better grip. “I did this on PX32864,” he said and started pulling again, “we all got stuck in a prison a lot like this one and…”

“You what?”

Nick looked at Daniel from over his shoulder realizing he hadn’t told this story. “Mom gets upset when I talk about this shit,” he explained, “my team was taken prisoner for three or four days and finally I managed to pry the bars on the cell apart so we could escape. We got out, blew the crap out of those jerks and made our back through the Stargate.”

Daniel was suddenly overwhelmed with pride for his eldest Son. There really was a reason the SGC was thinking about making him Colonel Jackson and giving his own SG team. All in all, Nick probably deserved it more than anyone else currently working at Stargate Command.

“Come on!” Nick ordered the bars as he pulled with all of his might. These bars weren’t like those others, they had given easily but these bitches seemed to be rusted shut or something. “I gotta get my wife and my Mother, you cocksucker! So just open the fuck up!”  The bars creaked and moaned so loudly Daniel had to cover his ears to block out the intruding sound. Suddenly the bars gave way under Nicholas’ strength. Once they started bending they wouldn’t stop and neither would Nicholas not until there was an opening wide enough for Daniel to get through appeared.  “After you.” Nick said turning around to his Father with a wide smile and breathing a sigh of relief.

“And how are you going to get through?”

Same as he did on PX32684. “I am my Mother’s Son,” Nick grinned.  “Go on, let’s get the hell out of this place.”

Slowly Daniel walked into the cell and poked his head through the nearly open window. “Oh, Nick, I don’t know…that’s…”

“Just do it, Dad.  Think home and I’ll meet you there…”

“In just a jiff.” Daniel squeezed through the open bars and perched very precariously on the ledge of the window.

“You got it.”

Taking a deep breath Daniel figured he didn’t have much to lose but he also never had much occasion to put his new Olympian abilities to the test. “Here goes nothing.” He said and made the leap. He disappeared just before he hit the water.

“All right, Dad!” Nick cheered and then began to squeeze his own massive frame through the small opening.  Yes, he was his Mother’s Son and any kitty worth its salt could squeeze through the smallest of holes.  So could Nicholas.  “Beat you, you bastard.” He muttered. “Touch my Mother or my wife and I swear I’ll send you to Oblivion.”  With that Nicholas too jumped and in a moment he appeared in Altair Ain.

Standing in the town square with fresh air blowing all around him Daniel felt like dancing. “Have I ever told you how smart you are?”

“I get it from my Father,” Nick said, “but you can tell Mom thanks for the idea, she must have known we were there.”

It wasn’t long before Duncan MacLeod was rushing toward them with the news of last night’s attack on the kingdom, the thievery of the Book of Shadows and the abduction of Annie. Lastly he had to tell that Calla had gone to the Underworld with Ares.  There was no way Calla could have known they were in the Dungeon let alone found a way to help them escape.

End of Chapter Eleven
Coming Out of Exile: The Strength of a Father's Love
by Moon Mistress
a/k/a Lisa Beth Darling
Go to
Chapter Twelve