The Quality of Mercy

Part 1

by

ELG

CONTENT WARNINGS: Violence. Language. Physical and emotional cruelty to SG-1. Attempted rape of a major character. Description of a medical procedure performed upon a major character. Mention of previous minor character(s) death(s). Some romantic implications in relationship between Sam and Martouf. Plus, Jack and Daniel hold a few rather dubious conversations. Basically every member of SG-1 is traumatized and/or physically damaged in some way during the course of this story. On the upside, Daniel is naked for one scene, and SG-1 do all briefly wear pyjamas

Click to see collage created by Bri

DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

Prologue

Colonel Jack O'Neill could feel faint vibrations from the old ship shivering through his injured leg as he breathed in deep draughts of air that smelt of metal, unwashed bodies, his own dried blood, and, most overpoweringly of all, relief. After so many hours in the noisome pit of Netu, a little honest human sweat smelt good to him right now, and even a thrumming pain in his staff-weapon seared leg just felt like fate's way of telling him the Goa'uld hadn't got them this time.

He felt he had good reason for celebration. They were all alive against all the odds. They'd completed their mission and more, and, anyway, how many men got to say they really had been to hell and back? This was definitely one for those memoirs he was never going to write that even if he did no one would ever be able to read.

The pain in his leg was lessening a little now too. Although the adrenalin of their escape had begun to ebb, the stuff he'd been given by Martouf's buddy was starting to kick in. So although he could still feel it, a wave of tingling that came in through the sole of his foot, traveled along his nerves and then flared at the wound before easing off again, it was growing fainter each time, like waves hitting a beach with less and less power as the tide receded.

O'Neill shifted, trying to get his leg more comfortable. Having first tended to Carter senior, Aldwin, the Tok'ra with the interesting bruise on his face, had given O'Neill something that he said had analgesic and restorative qualities, before wandering off a little dazedly to have another conversation with Teal'c. Teal'c really seemed to have impressed Aldwin, and not just with the power of his haymaker. O'Neill recognized the signs with a slight smile. He'd seen it so many times before.

Every now and then some other SG team asked to borrow Teal'c for a mission, and they always came back with that look on their faces; respect didn't really begin to cover it, it was more like embryonic hero-worship. O'Neill always got a kick out of how impressive Teal'c could be to the unsuspecting and then he got an extra kick because Teal'c was on his team. Now he came to think about it, people who saw Carter in action either in the field or when she got started on astrophysics tended to take a step back in amazement too, so he could get a little smug about having had the good sense to pick her for SG-1 as well. (And okay, he hadn't exactly 'picked' Carter, but nevertheless she was on his team now, and he was damned well taking the credit for it.)

As for the third member of his team, well, most of the other SG Teams didn't really 'get' Daniel. They liked him and respected him but they didn't really understand him and they seemed to be under the impression he'd be a lot of hard work to keep in one piece, and his team-leader might get a little tetchy if they allowed any harm to come to him. O'Neill couldn't think where anyone had got either of those ideas from, but as they prevented too many people putting in requests to borrow SG-1's anthropologist when they'd carelessly allowed something to happen to their own, he was quite happy for those unjustified rumors to stay in circulation.

At this moment, despite the dull ache in his injured leg and the sulfur fumes still coating the back of his throat, O'Neill was feeling particularly proud of SG-1. He was also starting to think that there were worse things than discovering he was redundant. Well, maybe not redundant, but discovering that sometimes his team could manage pretty well without him. He'd always had faith in his kids, of course, but all the same it was nice when they managed to surprise even him.

For instance he still had no idea how Teal'c had managed to outwit two gunships in a clapped-out tel'tak that could only run on half power, but the Jaffa seemed to have taken that in his stride. The same way he had taken shoving Aldwin into the cargo hold before maneuvering the ship into the exact position to save all their butts in his stride. The Tok'ra had come up with a feasible plan to blow Sokar straight to a hell that sadistic Goa'uld hadn't had custom-designed, and Aldwin had carried it out even in the teeth of Teal'c's quite formidable opposition – which, now it hadn't gotten them all killed after all, O'Neill was perfectly willing to be impressed by.

Carter had coped admirably with having a father dying in a place of eternal damnation while simultaneously juggling her own bad memories and someone else's, and had figured out a way to bust them out of jail free. No more than he'd expect of her, of course, but still nice to have it confirmed that when the chips were down his team could exceed even their ever-optimistic colonel's expectations. Then Martouf had managed to fake out Apophis very nicely – and that boy was full of surprises because up until then O'Neill hadn't thought the Tok'ra even knew how to cry.

Even Daniel, whom O'Neill would have half-expected to crumple from the strain of seeing Carter so upset, and Carter senior so clearly dying, and O'Neill having got shot right in front of him, and having the screams of the damned resounding in his ears for all those hours, had managed to hang on in there. He'd done a pretty good patch up job on his commanding officer's leg despite the fact his commanding officer had not been in the most co-operative of moods at the time. O'Neill had an idea he might have called Daniel a very bad word when the guy was binding up his leg. Still, what the hell, it had hurt and Daniel had pulled that damned tourniquet so tight and okay…he'd done it right and O'Neill had only snapped at him because he was pissed with himself for getting shot when they really all needed to be able-bodied if they were ever going to get out of there in one piece, but then, Daniel was a smart guy, O'Neill was sure he could work that out without needing an actual apology.

O'Neill was still a little surprised that Daniel hadn't started to lose it in that Pit because injured teammates and people being tortured all around him tended to eat into Daniel like an acid spill. And then, of course, having that confrontation with Apophis certainly couldn't have been easy for him, not to mention the little detail of having hallucinogenic glop poured down his throat so he could be made to relive an old memory…All in all, he would have half-expected Daniel to have been brought back to them pretty much a gibbering wreck. But the guy had managed to grab that communication device somehow, had helped him out of their dungeon and kept in touch with Teal'c so that their escape could be coordinated with the split second timing it needed, and hadn't even looked like falling apart.

In fact, thinking it over, the only member of SG-1 who had made no real contribution to their escape was Colonel Jack O'Neill himself. Although he had got himself first zapped by a ribbon device, and then shot by a staff weapon, with great efficiency, and had possibly stopped Daniel from losing it by making bad jokes at inappropriate moments to shock him back to the here and now, he hadn't done a lot else.

O'Neill closed his eyes and was immediately overwhelmed by a memory of the subterranean tunnels of Netu. Already coated with sweat, and the grime starting to settle on him like flies on a corpse; the stench of what was undeniably fire and brimstone in the air, chemicals clawing at his larynx, and that sudden emergence into a cavern like a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Tiers of suffering stretching apparently up to infinity as the red dark gave way to a red light still very much the color of blood.

He wasn't expecting the Damned to be the most civilized people he'd ever encountered, that was why he'd insisted Martouf let him and Carter bring their sidearms, but even he hadn't been prepared for this. He looked up, saw how many men, and the kind of men, they were dealing with, and realized he hadn't brought enough bullets. He was very aware of Carter appearing to be the only woman who existed in this place as anything other than a disembodied scream and his heart started to sink like an elevator going down. Then he noticed some big ugly hairy guy with a whole bunch of big ugly hairy friends looking Daniel over like he was the dessert tray, and the elevator became a cable car in free fall. Nothing like enough bullets and how the hell had Martouf persuaded him to come down here without Teal'c?

He couldn't protect them. There were too many bad guys and only one of him. He didn't have enough bullets. And he couldn't protect them.

That was the moment of realization and even now, safe on the tel'tak knowing that every one of those denizens who'd looked at his teammates and liked what he was seeing was incinerated in the fireball the Tok'ra had made of Netu, memories of that moment could still chill him.

When, a minute after Carter and Daniel had been thoroughly ogled, Bynarr had blasted him with the ribbon device then ordered them to be thrown into the Pit, it had actually come as something of a relief.

From then on it had been a series of the kind of events he liked least: people coming and taking members of his team away, and him not being able to do a damned thing to stop it. There was one hell of an irony about Apophis having saved Carter's life like that. O'Neill and the Snake God could now be said to go way back and if their grudge match wasn't quite up to the one Apophis had going with Daniel, no one could have called them the best of chums. The fact Apophis had saved one of O'Neill's team-members from what could definitely be designated 'certain death' was something O'Neill was really going to get a kick out of…in a few months time maybe, when the thought of how near Carter had come to being ribboned to death by Bynarr had stopped scaring the shit out of him quite so much.

He looked across at his so-nearly-ex-teammate then, just to reassure himself that she was indeed alive and well. Alive anyway. He wasn't sure how well anyone could be after having to go through what Jolinar had endured, even second-hand. And the trouble was it didn't feel second-hand when you had one of those memory devices stuck into your brain; it felt like it was happening now and to you. And given what kind of stuff Jolinar had been put through after her capture, that added up to a whole lot of bad memories for Carter which she was now going to have to carry around with her as well as her own. Like some difficult stepchild you really didn't want to take responsibility for. (And why was that making him think of Daniel, he wondered?)

O'Neill gave his head a shake to clear it, glancing back across at Carter while trying not to seem too anxious. She looked tired and more than a little frail. And grubby. O'Neill hadn't noticed how dirty they all were until now and looked down at his arms in mild surprise. That certainly wasn't his usual skin color. Well, he was giving Carter ten minutes when they got back to base then it was his and Daniel's turn to hit the showers. Actually, knowing Carter she'd probably want to scrape some of this gunk off their skin and stick it under a test-tube just in case Sokar had managed to synthesize some really interesting nasty chemicals on his little hell-away-from-home. Still, it was probably just as well O'Neill had got himself shot in the leg because at least that gave him a good reason to ask General Hammond to stand them down for a few weeks; which would give Carter a chance to take that vacation with her father. Although he hoped Jacob had been kidding about Alaska because O'Neill had been there twice before and unless you were really into getting frostbite it definitely sucked.

Aldwin had given Jacob a whole load of something restorative for Selmac before packing him off to a bunk, and Carter and Martouf were talking quietly in the corner about things O'Neill certainly didn't want to overhear. He'd worked out what Jolinar had done with Bynarr to get out of Netu, and knowing how the memory device worked that meant Carter had probably experienced every detail. Not something he wanted to think about and…

There were so many things he didn't want to think about. He'd worried a little that if by some slim chance they survived this trip, he might have childhood fears of the Hereafter awoken. The burning fiery furnace and the worm in the eye playing through his dreams the way they had when he was eight years old, and his own belief system was still influenced by some lingering remnants of his grandmother's faith. But he supposed he should always have known the hell you carried around with you would be the one there waiting for you in Sokar's life-sized mock-up.

Hell, for him, was always going to be the game of catch he'd never got to play with his son. Angry words he couldn't call back now, however many times he willed them never to have been said. He didn't know if it made it better or worse than even with that Blood of Sokar stuff inside him to cloud his mind, he'd known Charlie was dead. But he'd been prepared to bargain with his ghost, was still seeking absolution from his shade even now. He'd thought it was Sara's forgiveness he'd needed, but she had forgiven him, looked him in the eye so he could read for himself how she didn't blame him, hadn't left him because their child was dead, but only because when their child had died he hadn't allowed them to be any help to one another, and what kind of a marriage was it where you weren't allowed to help each other? And because she still loved him, she'd even forgiven him that as well. He'd always known she was way too good for him but it had taken Sara twenty years of marriage to realize she deserved better than he could offer her.

But it was only after Sara had granted him the absolution he'd thought he was seeking that O'Neill had realized the truth: that he still had that hole inside him only someone else's forgiveness could ever fill. It was then he'd realized whose forgiveness it was he'd always needed. But Charlie had never regained consciousness. Never had and never now could forgive him. And perhaps Apophis had stumbled on his enemy's Achilles' heel by chance, but he'd got it terribly right all the same. There was almost nothing Jack O'Neill wouldn't have done to obtain that longed for absolution from his dead son.

His leg was hurting again, a spiteful throb, purring and jolting in time to the tel'tak. How come the good guys always got the worst equipment? How come Sokar had ships with cloaking devices and the Tok'ra couldn't even run to one that had suspension? And…

And Daniel had been very quiet since they'd got back to the ship. Like eerily quiet. And if he was asleep – which was perfectly possible – that was fine, but if he wasn't…O'Neill cleared his throat before saying quietly, "Daniel?"

There was a long pause before he heard that, "Yes?"

"Nothing. Just wondered if you were okay?"

"I'm okay."

Yeah, sounds like it, Daniel.

At least he knew where the guy was now. Daniel hadn't moved from where he'd put himself when they first got back; up and directly behind O'Neill where he couldn't possibly see him unless he taught his head how to revolve. But Daniel was clearly not okay because if he was he would be sitting here with him, fussing over his leg, and the only reason he wasn't sitting here with him, fussing over his leg, was because his hands were obviously shaking too much for him to want O'Neill to see them.

O'Neill sighed. Daniel being quiet was never a good sign; it meant he was thinking. And if he wasn't thinking about how terrible a place Netu was and how nearly they had all died and how all those people had died – which would be his first guess – then he was probably thinking about whatever memory Apophis had been tormenting him with when he'd questioned him.

Thinking back, O'Neill realized he must have been drifting in and out of consciousness a lot while his teammates were being interrogated. It hadn't just been the Blood of Sokar still fizzing through his veins, but also the pain and blood loss from when Apophis' thugs had decided to do a little impromptu doctoring of his injured leg. The combination of faintness and nausea kept overwhelming him and then darkness would intervene for a while. It had been very disconcerting.

Apophis' heavies would come along and drag someone away and he'd still be in the middle of worrying about them when he'd wake up from having passed out again and find that he or she had been returned – usually in slightly shabbier shape than when they'd been removed – and another of his teammates had been taken away instead. Carter had come back that first time thinking she'd condemned her father to death. Martouf had come back crying for crying out loud, crocodile tears as it turned out, but still very unnerving. And Daniel…He had no memory of Daniel being taken away, just a vague recollection of waking up to hear Martouf asking why, when he thought he knew the address of the Tok'ra resistance, Apophis wanted to question Daniel at all? And that was when it had clicked into place what Apophis was after: the boy. Amaunet's child, or Sha're's child, the Harsesis who he'd told Daniel they could go look for next mission out.

His guts had turned over in that moment because he'd realized Apophis had no reason to feel well-disposed towards Daniel. When Apophis was dying, Daniel had told him he'd never find the boy; and then Daniel had taunted him with Amaunet's death only a few short hours before…

That was the point at which he'd started to feel relieved Apophis had found the memory device on Carter. Terrible as it had been to see Charlie again and know it wasn't Charlie; even though it had been like having his heart ripped out slowly, he was still glad that this was the route Apophis had chosen to make them talk. Because O'Neill hadn't even wanted to think about what the Snake God might have done to Daniel if there hadn't been this method so invitingly to hand. 

Which wasn't to say Daniel might not have preferred to be conventionally tortured. At the time when he'd been having to say 'no' to his dead son all over again, O'Neill had thought being sawn in half slowly would have had to hurt less than this; but at least when they'd shoved Daniel back into the cell with them he'd been on his feet and not bleeding. He'd looked a little dazed but then Daniel sometimes looked dazed on a good day, and none of them had come back exactly firing on all cylinders after having their brains screwed with by Apophis. Of course, the really big surprise was that Daniel had managed to grab back that communications device; a feat so sneaky that O'Neill was still impressed by it even now.

There had been no time to ask Daniel anything then because O'Neill seemed to remember all hell really had started breaking loose right after that, and he'd had to concentrate all his efforts on trying not to slow Daniel down too much as the guy helped him hop his way back to those nifty little ring things that might or might not be sending them straight to Sokar. So, there hadn't really been a moment before now in which he could say, "So, Daniel, which bad memory did you get to play with?"

Going by those fragmented murmurings from Carter and Martouf, not to mention his own experience with the Blood of Sokar, Apophis had chosen a moment of great significance between the one he was questioning and the person they loved or trusted most. So Carter had been forced to relive the moment when she'd forgiven her father for his part in her mother's death, and O'Neill had seen Charlie again, so real and so alive it was impossible to believe that this was just a figment of his imagination, that this child he missed so much was just a tool through which Apophis was hoping to destroy the Asgard. And Daniel…

Well there really wasn't any need to ask the guy what Apophis had put him through because O'Neill would have laid any money it was something to do with Sha're. Apophis would have had Sha're come and ask Daniel to tell him where her son was – just about the last thing in the world Daniel needed to hear right now. And, God, Daniel hadn't told her – or rather Apophis – had he?

"Daniel…?"

"Yes, Jack?"

Daniel sounded so weary. Not just with him – although that too, which was a little worrying, O'Neill had used to talk to his father that way when the guy was being particularly wearing – but with everything.

"Come and talk to me."

That wasn't what he'd been intending to say at all, but it seemed to work better than a more considered statement. He heard the soft thud of Daniel's feet hitting the floor and then Daniel was crouching next to him, looking anxious. "Are you okay? Is it that Blood of Sokar stuff? Are you still getting flashbacks?"

"Are you?"

"What?" Daniel had his dazed face on again. O'Neill knew the archaeologist was a clever guy, but Daniel sure didn't look it when he was wearing that expression.

"Are you getting flashbacks? You've been very quiet."

"No." Daniel folded his arms protectively across his chest, but then had to unfold them almost straight away to put his right palm back against his clearly aching cheekbone. "Are you?"

"No." O'Neill squinted in the low light, peering at Daniel's face. "Did someone hit you?"

Daniel shifted uncomfortably and there was another memory he could have done without. Did someone hit you, Charlie? Is someone bullying you? What happened to your allowance? How did your coat get torn like that? Charlie never would tell him who it was. He'd fought his own battles. And maybe O'Neill had never been a match for a really determined ten year-old but he was damned if he was going to take that kind of crap from Daniel. "Who hit you? Was it Apophis?"

"What does it matter?"

He hadn't been prepared for that response. "What?"

"Well what are you going to do, Jack? Go back to Netu and yell at someone? They're all dead. Apophis is dead. Sokar's dead. Everyone's dead."

Sha're's dead. O'Neill moistened his cracked lips before saying carefully, "We're not, Daniel. We're all alive, thanks to you."

Daniel's turn to frown. "Thanks to me?"

"You got the communication device back. Without it we'd be dead."

"I lost the communication device, Jack."

"You didn't lose it. It was taken from you." You didn't lose Sha're, Daniel; she was taken from you.

"So now you're going to nitpick over semantics?"

"I didn't lose you and Carter when Apophis had his goons come and grab you, I had you taken from me. It really pissed me off, but it wasn't my fault. You see the difference?"

Daniel gave him one of those sideways looks O'Neill had learned to hate; this was the expression Daniel always wore just before he said 'Checkmate'. "And that would be why you don't feel bad about it at all, would it?"

O'Neill heaved his best long-suffering sigh. "Why did Apophis hit you?"

"Because he was pissed off with me because I wouldn't tell him where the boy was. The guard hit me because I hit him."

"And you hit him because…?"

"I needed him to hit me back."

"Okay. That makes perfect sense. When they were hitting you, was it with really big clubs, maybe? The kind that cause permanent brain damage?"

Once Daniel had unwillingly made him a proper explanation in his best I-really-shouldn't-need-to-tell-you-something-this-obvious mutter, O'Neill did agree that Daniel's plan had made some kind of sense. Not a lot of sense, but a small amount of it. And the fact they were all now alive instead of all now dead lent an extra bit of weight to Daniel's argument that it had actually been rather a good plan. But he did wonder why it was all Daniel's cunning plans always seemed to involve Daniel risking his neck or getting hurt.

Daniel briefly took his hand away from his face again and O'Neill winced at the bruise coming out across the younger man's right cheekbone. It was a dull reddish-purple at the moment but it was going to be spectacular. O'Neill was going to be hobbling around on crutches for weeks and Daniel was going to be sporting a cheekbone that looked like it had been danced on by the Bolshoi in hobnailed boots, and the one of them who had probably had the worst time, Carter, wasn't going to have a scratch. Which didn't mean she was going to shake this off overnight. Experiencing someone else's torture at what must have felt like first-hand wasn't something you probably got over in a hurry, whereas having to carry around a memory of having sex with Bynarr…

O'Neill shuddered. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his son again, and when he could wrestle that image away, he was back in that red-lit chamber with those men eyeing up Carter and Daniel and him knowing there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop them. And oh God, they would have made him and Martouf watch it, and it had all been too damned close…

"You okay, Jack?"

Daniel sat down next to him so they were shoulder to shoulder, the way they'd been down in that Pit, and now, as then, it was obscurely comforting. In a place like that he'd wanted Daniel under his eye, anyway, just so he knew he was safe, but it was probably the first time he'd also taken comfort from knowing that Daniel was close at hand to take care of him . He tried not to lean on Daniel too often in case the younger man couldn't take the weight, but it seemed to have done Daniel good to have O'Neill relying on him, had given him a focus, a way to keep his mind concentrated on something other than what a terrible place they were in and what terrible things were happening all around him. O'Neill wondered if he ought to lean on Daniel a little more often from here on in.

He almost said, 'I'm fine, Daniel,' the way he always did but then decided to be honest. "I don't suppose any of us are going to shake this one off in a hurry. Let's face it, this wasn't a fun trip."

He looked at Daniel to check his reaction and saw how upset he looked. Okay, perhaps Daniel hadn't been ready for quite that much honesty; perhaps a bad joke would have been a better idea. Daniel said tautly, "Jack, would you mind doing me a favor?"

"For you, Daniel? Anything." He said it with a grin, trying to lighten the atmosphere a little.

"Ask me where Sha're's son is."

"What?"

"Ask me where Sha're's son is."

"But you already told me. I know where he is. Daniel, I promise you, next trip out we're going to go and take a look at…"

"Jack!"

Daniel was all scrunched up inside, he could tell now he really looked at him, like his guts were clenched into a fist, trying to will the words out of him. Why ever it was Daniel needed this from him he obviously needed it badly, and ten minutes ago.

O'Neill said quickly, "Daniel, what's the name of the place where Sha're said Amaunet took the boy? She took him to a planet, right? Tell me where it is."

Daniel swallowed. "I already told you."

O'Neill frowned at him in perplexity. Daniel was gazing at him like a dog desperate to be taken for a walk and that fist was clearly still clenched in his viscera. Okay, so Daniel obviously still wanted something from him but he couldn't tell him what, O'Neill had to guess, and he was way too old for this shit, but…"Tell me again?" O'Neill pressed.

It was obviously the right thing to say because Daniel relaxed and said, "Kheb, Jack. Sha're said Amaunet took him to Kheb."

"Well thanks for reminding me. Can't think how I came to forget that." O'Neill looked at him curiously, itching to ask Daniel what the hell that was all about but knowing this wasn't the right moment. "You okay now?"

Daniel nodded and put a hand back to his face. O'Neill frowned and looked up as Aldwin came back into the bay. "You got any more of that painkiller stuff?"

He'd actually wanted the medicine for Daniel, but Daniel interpreted his request as the proof O'Neill was feverish and in pain and needed the dressing on his leg changed. By the time O'Neill had argued with him unsuccessfully on all those points, been forced to drink more Tok'ra glop, and then taught Daniel some brand new words as he was having his bandage changed, Daniel was looking a lot happier, as well as having had his vocabulary expanded, which, for a linguist, was probably always an extra bonus. O'Neill was also pleased to see an exhausted Carter had gone to sleep with her head on Martouf's shoulder, so that was two of his team in better shape than they'd been an hour before, and Teal'c was presumably happy as well, continuing to display his proficiency in flying tel'taks by taking them back to Vorash, where, hopefully, they could 'gate home and get back to the infirmary. He'd never thought he'd be glad to see the infirmary, but compared with Daniel after an Air Force First Aid refresher course, Janet Fraiser was Florence Nightingale.

"Will you stop with the fussing already, Daniel? I swear you are turning into my mother."

Daniel fastened the new bandage Aldwin had supplied with what was definitely over-finicky neatness and then sat back on his heels to look intently at his handiwork. "So Apophis is definitely dead, right?"

"Daniel, he transported up to Sokar's ship; a ship we saw get blown to pieces."

"There were transportation rings on the ship. He could have transported to Sokar's planet. He could still be alive."

O'Neill grimaced. It was difficult holding a conversation with someone who kept staring fixedly at your bandaged leg and having no expression to his voice while he was asking you if the person who had ruined his life forever was definitely dead this time. Even forty-eight hours before, he would have said, 'Trust me on this, Daniel, the guy is toast,' but for some reason he couldn't say that today.

"Well, let's look at it logically. Apophis went up to see Sokar armed with false information about the Tok'ra resistance. If Sokar bought that crock Marty sold Apophis, he may have made Apophis his representative on Netu, in which case, Apophis could have been free at the time the bomb hit Netu, and he could have made it to the transportation rings. If that happened – and presuming Sokar didn't do the same thing and really is dead – Apophis now has access to a sarcophagus and the remnants of Sokar's power base, in which case I'm sure the Tok'ra will hear about it very soon and pass it onto us. More likely, Sokar didn't believe him and was in the process of killing him when the bomb hit Netu in which case Apophis is now dead and we don't need to worry about him any more. Either way, sooner or later, I'm sure we'll find out. And if he didn't die this time, he'll die next time. But, personally, I think he's dead. I think we got him and I think he's dead."

Daniel was looking at him in surprise; clearly appreciating not being fobbed off with a platitude this time but equally clearly not too sure why he'd been given the grown-up treatment. O'Neill felt a twinge of guilt as he saw Daniel's expression. Did he usually treat him like a child then? No. Definitely not. An annoyingly smart kid brother, maybe, but not a child.

He had a sudden memory of Hadante. The four of them trapped in a prison with the scum of the galaxy prowling around on the lookout for fresh meat. There had been times when it had felt as if every eye and every erection in the place was turned in Daniel's direction. And what had O'Neill said to him? How had he clued Daniel in on their current situation and the specific danger he was in from these people? Oh, Danny…? You've got to trust me on this…Signs of weakness are not a good thing in prison…Well that had been clear and straightforward, hadn't it? Oh yes, and he'd taken Daniel's glasses off. Thereby making Daniel look so much less vulnerable, of course. It had probably stopped Daniel noticing the way all those guys with hard-ons were looking at him but other than that he didn't think it had done a whole lot of good.

Daniel said, "Thank you, Jack."

"You're welcome." He answered him automatically, not even sure what Daniel was thanking him for, brain still whirring in a way which said it didn't give a damn how tired the rest of him was it wasn't going to be shutting down any time soon.

Why hadn't he told Daniel the truth on Hadante? Why hadn't it occurred to him even for one second to just tell Daniel the real reason why they had to get the hell out of that place before he and Teal'c got so tired they had to sleep and so left him undefended?

Because you don't tell children about things like that. You protect them from finding out about things like that. You want them to hang onto their innocence for as long as possible.

That wasn't fair. Daniel being innocent was something everyone acknowledged. It was part of what made the guy special and he wasn't alone in wanting Daniel not to lose that aspect of his personality. It had nothing to do with him treating Daniel like a child. Which he didn't, in any case. And never had. After all, no one could accuse Teal'c of treating Daniel like a son substitute and Teal'c hadn't told Daniel what the guy had tried to grab him for on Hadante, had he? He'd just hauled the son-of-a-bitch off him and started squeezing his windpipe until his eyeballs popped.

No, because you'd made it clear you didn't want Daniel clued in, hadn't you?

And why the hell were those little voices in your head never on your side?

Anyway, if he had ever treated Daniel like a child, Daniel would have been sure to mention it. This was, after all, a guy who despite knowing twenty-three languages had never been able to grasp the concept of 'shut up' in any of them.

God, you never show me any respect!

And on a good day you can be a little…ignorant and condescending…

Okay. Okay. There had been the occasional complaint. But on both of those occasions Daniel had not been himself. And even then, with his brain screwed up by that damned sarcophagus or those stupid plants… I'm going to stick around and work on this quarantine thing with plant boy here...Okay, that had possibly been edging towards what could perhaps be called 'condescending' but the plants had been screwing with his head too. And the point was surely that even then Daniel had never actually said: 'Stop treating me like a surrogate son, Jack.'

He opened his mouth to say, "Daniel, have I ever treated you like a child?" but then closed it again. What if Daniel said yes?

When he tried to discern any year-old resentment on the younger man's still-grimy features he found Daniel oblivious of his concerns and looking across to where Carter was asleep. Daniel lowered his voice to murmur, "Do you think Sam's going to be okay?"

Sticking to his new policy of total honesty, O'Neill realized the truthful answer to that question was, 'I have no idea,' but he figured Daniel might have had enough honesty for one day and went for the kinder option instead. "She's going to be fine, Daniel. She and Jacob are going to go do some serious bonding while I'm hobbling around at home getting bored, and she is going to be fine."

Daniel took a last look at Carter then glanced back at the white bandage around O'Neill's leg as though it was some fascinating artifact in need of translating. "And are you going to be okay?"

"You already asked me that. Twice."

"You didn't answer me. Twice."

So Daniel had noticed that then? Damn. It was getting harder and harder to get things past the guy these days. "I'll let you know, Daniel," O'Neill said quietly. "I'll let you know."

***

"Jack…? Jack!"

Daniel was calling his name. They were holding Daniel down, shredding him, tearing into him; every now and then O'Neill would catch a glimpse of flesh, hear another blow, grunts of pleasure, thick laughter, while Daniel struggled desperately to no avail, screaming for help over and over, louder and louder. He was trying to get to Daniel, fighting to get loose and help him but that damned rope around his neck was squeezing the breath from his body…

"Damnit, Jack, wake up !"

He gasped into wakefulness to find Daniel using one hand to shake him with and the other to clasp across his mouth. The palm of Daniel's hand tasted salty – like you'd expect if he'd been rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes to stop tears. God, Daniel had been crying?

O'Neill stared intently up into Daniel's face. Daniel did look distressed, it was true, and his eyes were suspiciously bright but there were no tear tracks on his face so…O'Neill became aware of the pinched wet feel of his own skin, the sting of drying tears overlaid by new trails of dampness. Suddenly the expression in Daniel's eyes began to make sense. Daniel was overflowing with compassion, not sorrow.

The hand was taken from his mouth and the water bottle proffered instead. Daniel's hand was a little shaky O'Neill noted clinically; more surprisingly, so was his own.

Daniel said quietly, "I think you may have a fever, Jack. You keep having these…awful dreams."

O'Neill took a deep swig from the water bottle and then wiped his mouth. "I don't remember them."

Glancing up at Daniel as he handed him back the water, O'Neill read in those blue eyes that Daniel had overheard way too much; shared pain that hadn't eased O'Neill's burden one little bit but had just dumped a whole load of crap on Daniel.

Although on waking he had been vaguely aware of a jumble of images, those had gone now, all he could remember was the last one, the one he really hoped Daniel hadn't heard enough to understand, and oh boy, looking at his expression, Daniel had both overheard and understood.

"Martouf said you should take this." Daniel was putting something in his hand, a white tablet.

O'Neill took it, washing it down with more water – was he ever going to drink enough water to wash the sulfur burn of Netu out of his lungs? Daniel moved to sit next to him so their shoulders were touching again. He spoke in a low voice: "Jack, if anything should ever…happen to me on a mission, you know it wouldn't be your fault."

"It might me by my fault, Daniel. If I screwed up and took you into a situation where you got hurt or killed, that would be my fault."

He was aware of Daniel shooting him a worried sideways glance. The younger man had his arms wrapped around himself to keep the rest of the world out and some comfort in. He wondered why the hell Daniel kept using that trick when he must know damn well by now it never worked.

Daniel said quietly, "Then let's just say I wouldn't blame you. If something happens to me on a mission, whosever 'fault' you want to think it is, I don't blame you for it. I forgive you in advance, Jack. I am offering you unconditional absolution."

He'd been begging Charlie for his forgiveness, saying he'd play catch with him, answer him anything, if Charlie would just tell him he forgave him. Daniel must have soothed him back to sleep since then. Which was when the second lot of nightmares had started, the ones back in the Pit and oh boy…he must have been calling out to Daniel, telling those men to let him go, to stop before they killed him, threatening them, pleading with them, begging them…Oh Christ, he still didn't know how much Daniel knew about that kind of stuff. Back on Hadante Daniel had been almost scarily clueless. This time he wasn't so sure. There had been a moment on Netu when he'd thought Daniel had understood the look in that ogling bastard's eyes, but he'd hoped he was mistaken.

Why? Still want him to be innocent more than you want him to be safe, O'Neill?

How would Daniel knowing what they wanted to do to him have made him any safer? Those sort of people could smell fear half a mile off. All being scared gets you in a place like that is dead.

So does being ignorant.

O'Neill moistened his cracked lips, very aware of the tears drying on his face, of the realization Daniel had been trying to stem the flow of them with his hands while pleading with him to wake up and shut up before he woke the whole damned ship. He took another sip of water but it didn't help.

Daniel spoke again, "And even as I'm giving it to you. Even as I am giving you my unconditional absolution for anything that might happen to me while I am under your 'protection', I know it isn't going to help. Because the person you have to square it with is such a mean, grudging son-of-a-bitch who has never cut you an inch of slack since the day you were born."

O'Neill looked up in surprise. He had never said word one to Daniel about his father. Or was Daniel going cosmic on him here, was he talking about God?

Daniel turned and looked at him then, saying intently, "I'm talking about you, Jack. You were a wonderful father to Charlie and he loved you. He would have forgiven you in the blink of an eye and you've always known it. The person who can't forgive you for what happened to him was always called Jack O'Neill. And he's the same guy who won't give you any peace if anything happens to Sam or Teal'c or me, but we don't want him on your case because of us. We never have and we never will. We like you way more than he does and we know you'd never let any of us down. If we die then it'll be because there was nothing you could do to save us." Daniel averted his eyes then and ran a hand through his hair. He spoke so quietly O'Neill could hardly hear him. "You know the best peace you could probably give Charlie is to stop torturing the father he loved for something which was never his fault."

O'Neill wondered if there was anyone else he would have sat there and taken that from without lashing out. Even now, and even though this was Daniel, and a Daniel who was a breath away from crying just out of compassion for him, there was a part of him that wanted to hit the guy for even saying Charlie's name to him. What made it worse was that of course Daniel knew that and had known it before he ever opened his mouth and didn't even care if he hit him or not. Which was another reason, of course, why hitting Daniel wasn't an option, which made everything he'd just said that much more annoying.

O'Neill said softly, "Do you know what my last nightmare was about?"

"Yes."

"About what those guys were doing to you?"

"Yes, I got it. I expect everyone else got it too, but it still didn't happen." Daniel reached across and took the water bottle back from him, not quite a snatch, but as close as someone like Daniel probably ever came. He gulped down a mouthful quickly.

O'Neill waited until Daniel had finished swallowing, wanting him to hear what he had to say. And not just because he wanted to punish Daniel for what he'd said about Charlie – although maybe that was part of it as well – but also because he thought it was about time they both looked this possibility in the eye. Time to start treating him like a grown-up, right? "But it could have happened."

"But it didn't!"

O'Neill reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder, digging his fingers in to make Daniel turn his head and look at him. He repeated the words carefully, "But it could have happened, Daniel."

"It still wouldn't have been your fault and I still wouldn't have blamed you for it, and I would still have wanted you to have a life afterwards."

"Even if you didn't? Even if yours ended there, like that, in that stinking pit, with a whole bunch of stinking men holding you down and…?"

"Yes, Jack. Even then. There is no way that anyone can kill me that I will blame you for it, okay? Sometimes people just die and it's nobody's fault. And I don't ever want you to wake up screaming because of me. I don't ever want to be part of the stuff you do to yourself. So, when you're totting up the list of Bad Things you have done that you deserve to suffer for, you can put any damned name on that list you like, however insane it might be, except mine. You have to promise me you'll never put my name on that list."

There was a long pause before O'Neill took the water bottle back from Daniel's hands and took another swig. "Don't die, Daniel," he said with a shrug. "Because that is the only way to keep off that list. Don't get yourself killed, or maimed, or tortured, or…whatevered and then I can't blame myself for it, can I?"

Daniel groaned and banged the back of his head gently against the embossed rim of the first tier of seating, gold hieroglyphs beating a faint tattoo onto the back of his skull. "You are such a stubborn unreasonable son-of-a-bitch sometimes."

O'Neill shrugged. "Sorry, Daniel, nice try but this one's on you. You don't want me to wake up screaming because of you, don't give me any cause to."

"Can't we just agree that if it happens, I won't blame you and you won't blame me?"

"But I will blame you, Daniel, and I'll blame me too, so don't let it happen and then I won't have to."

Daniel closed his eyes and shook his head. O'Neill smiled then because he didn't get to win arguments with Daniel very often but they both knew he'd won this one; which wasn't bad for a man wrestling with nightmares and fever and a staff weapon burn to his right leg. "Face it, Jackson, you are way out of your league here."

"But I'm right," Daniel protested faintly. "And we both know it."

O'Neill's smile got wider. "And since when has you being right ever made any difference to me? If I let a little detail like that start influencing me who knows where it would end?"

"Actually I was wrong once tonight," Daniel said conversationally. "You're a stubborn unreasonable son-of-a-bitch all the time."

"And you wouldn't want me any other way."

Daniel gave him a look that spoke volumes.

O'Neill shifted uncomfortably under that withering gaze. "Well, okay, maybe you would. But tough."

A proper little smile from Daniel at last. Good. He'd been thinking Daniel was never going to smile again. Daniel was dropping his head a little to try and hide it, not wanting to give O'Neill the satisfaction, but he'd seen it and he knew what it meant. Daniel was going to be okay. Carter was going to be okay. And Apophis might have bequeathed them a whole bunch of new bad memories as his parting gift to them, but hopefully that snake was finally dead this time, which had to help a whole hell of a lot, right?

O'Neill said quietly, "Yes, I am, Daniel."

Daniel gave a little jolt beside him and he wondered if the guy had just been drifting off. If he'd been keeping him up with his nightmares, he was probably tired, but still it had to be said.

"What?"

"You asked me if I was okay? Yes I am. We're all alive and I'm okay."

Daniel said drowsily, "Well I'm really tired, Jack, so shut up and let me get some sleep, will you?"

O'Neill realized that Daniel had managed to have the last word yet again. Then a heavy weight on his left shoulder told him Daniel had fallen asleep on him, which these days meant Daniel was feeling either very insecure, very protective, or was just so damned tired he didn't care where he was. Probably a mixture of all three in this instance. O'Neill looked around for a jacket to drape around him, realized there wasn't one within snagging range and so settled for putting his arm around his shoulders instead. Perhaps Daniel wasn't the only one feeling insecure and protective because he found it very comforting to have the guy under his hand like that. It had to be harder to have a nightmare about someone being dragged away from you and killed when you could feel his breath against your neck the whole time.

When he closed his eyes, he could still see Charlie standing there with that water-pistol in his hands, but he was damned if he was going to let Apophis hurt him with that image. His son hadn't been so very clear in his memory in a while now. He could actually remember the way his bangs had been cut so unevenly, that little overbite, the way he spoke, the fresh clean smell of him even, and that was a good thing, right? Because he sure as hell didn't ever want to forget one detail of the way his son had been. And the other stuff was just a combination of a slight fever and the after-effects of not having been able to protect Carter and Daniel; but actually Carter and Daniel had done fine without him, and Teal'c had done fine without him, and everything was okay. And what was more he'd decided that he now knew the definition of a successful mission for probably the first time in his life.

The fact they'd managed to save Carter's father, kill Apophis and blow Sokar out of the sky, well that was just the icing on the cake; that didn't make for a successful mission. The point was that they'd been to hell and come back from it, alive, in one piece, and pretty much the same people they'd been when they left, and maybe it was the age he'd got to now or maybe he'd just learned to expect less from life, but he now believed that any mission where he could check those three boxes could be counted as a success.

It was only as he drifted back to sleep that it occurred to O'Neill that whatever good they might do or aims they might accomplish, it also meant that any mission where he couldn't check those three boxes, would have to be counted as a failure.

***

Part One

As the Stargate dematerialized behind him, Daniel noticed what appeared to be a building a few hundred yards away up a short incline. There was a heavy mist rolling out from the trees which obscured much of the surrounding landscape, but the stark lines of the structure still emerged from wraiths of ground cloud, at once forbidding and magnetic. Cursing the mist, Daniel pulled out his binoculars. Even through the haze he could see the building was an odd mixture of pyramid and ziggurat, strongly suggestive of some cultural cross-pollination in the distant past. He adjusted the focus, trying to see if he could make out the markings on the walls but although there was clearly something inscribed upon the jointed blocks, with the mist still rolling in like a wolf pack, he couldn't tell if they were hieroglyphs proper or a cursive derivative.

It was two months since they'd escaped from Netu. Jack's leg was so well recovered there was only a faint pinkish-fawn line on his thigh where the staff weapon had burnt its reprimand into his skin, and he no longer had even the trace of a limp. But the memory of the moment when Apophis' henchman had just turned around and blasted Jack for no real reason; could have killed him as quickly and as pointlessly as that, was still an open wound in Daniel's memory. Sam had come so close to being murdered by Bynarr, and Jack had come so close to being killed right in front of his eyes. And if it hadn't been for Teal'c's superhuman determination to get them out of there, come what may, they would all have literally burned in hellfire when Netu erupted around them. Daniel wasn't sure that he was ever going to get over that.

As Jack had only been allowed out of the infirmary on condition he was given round-the-clock help and supervision, and as Daniel had felt Sam and Teal'c both really deserved a break after their recent exertions, Daniel had volunteered to be the one to spend a month as an unpaid home help to an injured Jack O'Neill.

It had gone better than Daniel had anticipated in that neither of them had killed the other, which, given how fraying to the nerves they had both found their trip into the underworld, and how unbelievably crabby Jack was when convalescing, he thought was a minor achievement in itself. The mornings were the trickiest, but he'd found if he staggered out of bed three hours earlier than he wanted to in order to throw breakfast at the guy like he was a hungry mastiff, pretended not to hear anything Jack said for the first hour of the day, didn't read the newspaper before Jack did (Jack liked his paper un crumpled as he remembered from when he'd first come back from Abydos), reminded himself at least once a day that inappropriate sarcasm, although annoying, hurt no one and Jack was probably in pain, and doubled his own caffeine intake from the moment he opened his eyes, they could live together reasonably well without the need for bloodshed.

Jack had threatened to throw his crutches at Daniel on the occasion when a particularly heated debate about why someone with an only half-healed burn on his right leg couldn't drive himself to a hockey game had culminated in Daniel hiding the keys to Jack's jeep. But although Jack had looked as though he meant it and Daniel had actually been getting ready to duck, Jack had settled for hopping angrily into the kitchen and opening and shutting all the drawers as loudly as possible to vent his frustration that way.

The next day Daniel had accepted the bag of chocolate walnut cookies Jack had limped down to the imported groceries store to buy him in the spirit of apology in which they were meant. Jack hardly ever actually said he was sorry, even when he'd been unspeakable, but he would indicate he was sorry by suggesting they watch the Discovery Channel instead of ESPN, or pointing out that there was a lecture on Egyptian hieroglyphs being given by one of Daniel's old colleagues in Boston and they could fly over there and heckle him if Daniel liked.

Apart from the fact he and Jack were getting worryingly like an old married couple by the time the month was up, Daniel felt that the taking-care-of-Jack duty had gone pretty well all things considered, and had helped work off some of the debt he felt he owed him for all the taking-care-of-Daniel duty Jack had done in the past. Sam had come back from her vacation with her father looking a lot less tired and worn than when she'd left, while Jacob, thanks to Selmac, had made a complete recovery from his ordeal in Netu. The only downside to looking after Jack (apart from the actual looking-after-Jack part of having to look after Jack which had been a downside all by itself) was that Daniel hadn't had as many opportunities as he would have liked to sit down with Sam and discuss how she was bearing up since Jolinar's memories had been tripped in her mind like a particularly nasty set of landmines. They had talked about Netu, and Jolinar, and even a little about Martouf, but Bynarr had remained undiscussed, and Daniel hadn't had the heart to ask her if she was waking up remembering the dead Goa'uld's leering face.

Looking across at Sam now as she fiddled with the panel of the DHD, speaking rapidly to Teal'c about Goa'uld technology while the Jaffa gravely nodded his head, he was reminded of his first meeting with her; how it had been like another kind of homecoming to suddenly find himself talking to someone who understood what he was saying; whose own mind could follow the ellipses his was always making and could make sense of his conclusions. It was as though after years of believing himself to be an orphaned only child, he'd suddenly discovered he had a twin sister he'd never met until now.

He wondered what the Sam who knew how it felt to be a Tok'ra thought of the Sam who'd leapt so eagerly through the Stargate that first time out and almost lost her lunch on the other side of the wormhole. He thought Sam probably had more pity than contempt for her earlier self; but for himself there were days when he thought that if you put him a room with the man he'd used to be, they wouldn't have a single thing left to say to each other.

Except, of course, they had those two things in common that would never change: absolute love for Sha're; absolute trust in Jack O'Neill. Even though Sha're was dead and unreachable; someone he had failed to save rather than someone he believed he would one day save, his love for her hadn't altered. And there was still something he could do for her; he could find her child and deliver him from the Goa'uld; protect the Harsesis from the danger his hereditary knowledge placed him in…

And, damn, he was still getting flashbacks to that Blood of Sokar stuff. He didn't know how long he'd been waiting to hear those words from Jack. Logic told him that it couldn't be more than four years, and as he hadn't really known the guy well enough to care that much about his opinion on their first meeting, it was more likely three years, at the most; but it felt like a lifetime.

All the same, he'd never thought for an instant that Apophis would know to choose that scene to try and trick him. Having overheard what Sam had said about what the Blood of Sokar did to your mind he'd been braced for a memory of Sha're, for those beautiful eyes gazing into his; that mouth he so missed whispering in his ear how much she loved him and how much she wanted to see her child again, asking him to tell her where he'd been taken, please, my Daniel, please…

But, of course, Apophis was clever, and Daniel had been given three long years to accustom himself to the idea that Sha're wasn't always Sha're, that Sha're was more often Amaunet, and Amaunet couldn't be trusted. Jack, however, could always be trusted. Jack could be trusted absolutely. Jack would never lie to him.

And then Jack had lied to him. Had asked him so nicely where the boy was that Daniel couldn't believe it at first. The conversation hadn't gone quite like this last time; something was wrong but…then he'd realized what it was: Jack was asking him what Apophis wanted to know. Jack was doing Apophis' work. Jack was lying to him…

Even though he'd known this couldn't really be Jack, how could he refuse him anything after what the man had just given him? How could he say 'no' to Jack when Jack had just told him he believed in him? Saying 'no' to Jack in that moment had felt like the hardest thing in the world.

He was still getting nightmares. Even two months later. It was ridiculous and he knew it, but a Jack who lied to him frightened him more than any Unas; a Jack he couldn't trust, who looked like Jack and sounded like Jack, and was so much Jack in every way but told him things that weren't true; that was real horror; that was the bottom ripped out of his world.

Even now, standing on a grey-green planet fifty thousand light years from the smoldering remains of Netu, feeling the mist dampening his hair and glistening on his skin, a glimmer of that false memory could still chill him to the bone.

Daniel had just about got to the stage in his post-Netu recovery where he didn't feel he had to have one of his teammates within sight at all times or else he started panicking, but he still found himself doing a quick inventory now, just to see that, yes, there they all were, alive and well. Sam and Teal'c were still looking at the DHD with keen attention, Jack was pointedly looking at his watch and yawning because the conversation was obviously miles over his head and consequently boring him rigid, while Daniel could feel that temple tugging at his right eyeball, demanding that he turn and gave it another glance. So everything seemed to be pretty much back to normal.

And that temple really was calling to him now and he wondered if he could just go up there and take a quick look round before anyone…

The sound of the Stargate re-engaging made him glance around in shock, but to his relief he saw only that Sam appeared to be doing some kind of test dial. However, just in case they were planning to turn around and go straight home again, he thought he'd better just point out the temple to them first. "Guys?"

Sam and Teal'c were still deep in their clearly very technical discussion about the DHD. As the wormhole disengaged and disappeared for a second time, he heard Sam say, "So, okay, at least we know we can dial out, my worry is…" Mist rolling across between them muffled the rest of her sentence and remembering the DHD they had once found smashed and inoperative, Daniel felt a twinge of unease. He hurried back over to them, stumbling on the uneven ground.

He was in time to hear Teal'c say, "I concur, Major Carter. If that were the case then it would be better if we could disconnect it ourselves."

"Everything okay?"

As neither Teal'c nor Sam answered him, Daniel turned to Jack who shrugged expressively. "It seems this DHD has an extra gizmo we haven't seen before. Apparently it works fine, but Carter just isn't going to sleep at night if she can't find out what the extra component does."

"Well, sir, I'd just hate to think the Goa'uld had something we didn't."

Daniel could see that this was going to take a while. Sam was nothing if not tenacious and she clearly wasn't going to stop experimenting with the DHD until she'd cracked the mystery of the extra component, while Teal'c had the quiet persistence of water wearing its way into rock. Jack, by comparison, was obviously already cold, bored, and likely to be getting irritable any time soon. Daniel's first instinct was to just leave them to it and go have a quick look at the temple on the hillside before anyone thought up a good reason why he shouldn't. However, commonsense told him not to just head off without telling anyone, although not perhaps as loudly as curiosity was telling him that he should.

"Carter, are you going to try every possible combination on that thing?"

Daniel winced at the exasperation in Jack's voice, realizing that this was clearly one of those times where if he asked if it was all right for him to examine an ancient building of cultural significance Jack would just tell him irritably to stay put. He said tentatively, "Jack, there's a really interesting – "

"Don't want to hear it, Daniel, and whatever it is, the answer's no." Jack blew on his fingers pointedly, making Daniel wonder not for the first time why the man always wore fingerless gloves instead of the ones that actually kept his hands warm. But now would probably not be a good time to ask that question either. A supposition confirmed as Jack raised his voice to shout, "Teal'c! Carter! Just how long is this likely to take because some of us are ageing here?"

As casually as he could, and turning his head so that the mist would swallow most of his words, Daniel murmured, "Fascinating temple up on the hill there – looks like it could maybe be Mesopotamian. I'm just going to go take a look at it. Okay?" Then he backed up the hill, turning around after a few yards to hurry towards the temple.

***

Daniel pushed open the double doors tentatively and found himself in a huge echoing chamber. He took out his flashlight and tentatively shone it around the walls, the powerful beam immediately revealing an enormous statue of what was clearly a god flanked by two stone lions. The deity was depicted carrying a spear and wearing a headdress consisting of four long plumes.

Daniel murmured to himself, "Anhur, also called Onuris, derived from the Egyptian word anhuret 'he who brings the far near', also called Inhert; consort of the lioness-goddess Mehit. Let me think – yes, first attested in the Thinite region in Upper Egypt but by the Late Period associated with the delta site of Sebennytos where a temple was dedicated to Onuris-Shu by Nectanebo the Second. Sometimes associated with the Greek God Ares – interesting – does that mean we're talking one Goa'uld or two? Did the Goa'uld adapt to gain new worshippers, move in on each other's territory, or is this something to do with one host dying and being replaced? Anhur. Onuris. The champion of Egypt who hunted and slew the enemies of Ra. Called by some the Son of Ra – not good news for those of us who killed him if Anhur should drop in to see how his worshippers are doing – often portrayed as an avenger, called also the 'lord of the lance'. So – vengeful, warlike, and an ally of Ra. So far, so not so good."

He turned to look at the walls and found them pockmarked with an incalculable number of alcoves in which stood pottery jars the color of blood, most of them broken into three or more pieces. It took Daniel a moment to recognize the red clay as execration texts, pictures of bound captives inscribed with hieratic cursing rituals. Here and there were changes in the pattern – jars not yet broken, or, more disconcertingly still, texts inscribed on broken and unbroken human skulls. Fascinated and yet also a little taken aback by the number of enemies being cursed in the name of Anhur, Daniel took off his glasses, wiped them on a corner of his jacket and put them back on. He shone his torch onto the nearest skull. "Nine bows," he murmured aloud, "the figure nine representing three times three which was the plurality of pluralities thus designating the entirety of all enemies. Okay, total destruction being invoked for everyone who has ticked off Anhur ever, so we're definitely not talking about a benevolent deity here, and maybe it might be a good idea for me to leave now."

As he turned to go his eye was caught by more hieratic text inscribed upon a pillar. Daniel translated aloud, " ' May I be granted power over the waters, for I am he who crosses the sky, I am the Lion, I am the Slayer.' That's interesting, that's from the Book of the Dead except they've cut the references to Seth and Ra. Maybe in this culture Anhur is supposed to be Ra, and I wonder if the lions here are supposed to be some kind of tribute to Anhur's mate, Mehit, or if this Goa'uld's version of the Anhur cult actually borrowed from Aker?"

As Daniel went to make his way back to the open doors he found himself face to face with men who wore lion manes for hoods, carried long spears, and had inscribed upon their foreheads the four long plumes that represented Anhur. Before Daniel could open his mouth to explain who he was, something struck him so hard that he was wrapped in darkness before he even hit the floor.

***

The plaintive cry of that bird of prey circling overhead gave him an unwanted reminder of P8X-873. As Teal'c and Carter worked on the DHD, O'Neill blew on his fingers and tried not to remember how light Sha're had felt in his arms as he carried her corpse back to the 'gate. Only the metal jewelry had given her weight, just as it was the only thing about her that was truly cold, truly lifeless. Her skin had still been warm. Just like Charlie had still been warm. But with Sha're there hadn't been any blood; just that hole in her midriff where the staff blast had gone right through her. At such close range that was what a staff did to a human body, but despite the terrible wound she'd still looked so beautiful. Eerily peaceful too. So calm. So lovely. And, unfortunately, so dead.

The picture which kept coming into his mind as he picked her up from the floor of Amaunet's tent and carried her out into the daylight was of Daniel, also with a dead Sha're in his arms, gaze fixed upon him with such trust, saying 'Wait for me.' On Ra's ship, Daniel had put Sha're in a sarcophagus and saved her. This time there was no sarcophagus. And perhaps too there was no will to bring her back. Not to this. To life as a host to that snakebitch Amaunet; someone who had just taken so much pleasure in using Sha're's hand to wield the ribbon device that had damned near killed Daniel. Daniel had passed out only a few seconds after O'Neill had entered the tent but even though he'd headed straight for him, Teal'c had still got there first.

He glanced over his shoulder to reassure himself he was still breathing and saw the younger man's chest rise and fall. Teal'c was carrying him, not in the usual fireman's lift, but the way you carried children. Perhaps that was why Daniel looked so rag-doll limp and defenseless with his seared face nestling against the Jaffa's shoulder. Teal'c had told him three times now that Daniel was going to be okay, but he sure as hell didn't look too good. He'd seen Daniel after he'd been in the grip of ribbon devices twice before, but this time the burn on his forehead and the bridge of his nose was much worse than when Klorel had tried to kill him. Which meant Amaunet must have got dangerously close to turning her host into a widow before Teal'c had made Daniel a widower.

Daniel a widower. He still couldn't take it in. All this time, all this effort, all that hope, all that belief, in Daniel's case, that sooner or later they would be bound to get Sha're back, and now it was over. He'd had such mixed feelings about her for so long. The sweet girl he'd barely met on Abydos whom Daniel loved transformed into the Goa'uld Queen who'd just stood there when Apophis knocked Daniel across the room on Chulak, before making another transition into the friend's wife who'd given birth to another man's child. An unwilling adulteress and equally unwilling murderess transformed by an alien parasite into someone who might so easily bring disaster upon them all. To O'Neill, if not to Daniel, she'd been the enemy as well as someone they needed to save. Someone he wanted to rescue for Daniel's sake yet knew if they did it would probably cost them. If they were lucky it might only cost them Daniel leaving SG-1 to go back to Abydos, but there had always been the fear a glimpse of Sha're in the distance would be the bait which lured Daniel to his death.

O'Neill stepped carefully over a Jaffa corpse as the wind tugged at Sha're long dark hair, making it lap and coil against his arm like a caress. It was perfumed and the scent of it was maddeningly sweet; a velvety contrast to the sharp tang of carbide still tainting the air. He raised her up a little higher and it was hard to believe there really wasn't a heartbeat to listen for any longer and never would be again; her face showed such extraordinary peace. He was almost grateful for the savagery of that wound. Sha're had the look of someone who could be coaxed back from this death so easily, but that staff blast carried a blistering finality. There were no more possibilities left to them now. The quest might have ended in tragedy and failure but at least it had ended, and he was grateful for the closure. He'd never thought a part of him could be consoled by the smell of burnt flesh.

As he raised her awkwardly, the sunlight glinted off her red and gold headdress, momentarily dazzling him.  Amaunet's headdress with its serpent emblem. But this wasn't Amaunet. This was Daniel's wife. Kasuf's daughter. Skaara's sister. A citizen of Abydos by birth, and Earth by marriage, who shouldn't spend another second burdened by the weight of Apophis' love tokens. O'Neill wasn't a fanciful man but he felt certain Sha're spirit was chafing at these dead gold bands, unable to be free while they still burned her skin. He pulled off the headdress and threw it to the ground, disordering those dark coils still further. He couldn't manage the ribbon device but Carter came and helped him. She eased it off the dead woman's hand gently then removed the gold armlet as well. When O'Neill looked over his shoulder to see how Daniel was doing, he received a gentle nod of approval from Teal'c.

Despite the fact it was a weapon she could use, Carter threw away the ribbon device then very gently smoothed back Sha're's hair. He'd known she was seeing what he was seeing when she said quickly, "Maybe one of Amaunet's Jaffa might still be alive. She must have had a sarcophagus somewhere, or maybe the Tok'ra…" She trailed off as he shook his head.

"It's over, Major," he said it quietly. "She's gone."

"I know, sir, it's just…Daniel…"

He followed her anxious gaze and so saw the look on Teal'c's face. One he recognized and not just from the Cor-ai when Teal'c had practically demanded to be put to death for his past crimes. He'd seen that expression in the shaving mirror way too many times to forget.

He said, "You did the right thing, Teal'c."

"I do believe I took the only appropriate action to save the life of Daniel Jackson, and given the same circumstances I would do it again." The Jaffa raised his gaze from Daniel's burnt face and didn't attempt to hide the bleakness in his eyes. "But Sha're is still dead because of me."

O'Neill grimaced. There was no answer to that and they both knew it. So much depended on Daniel now. Absolution couldn't come for anyone but him. Daniel had demonstrated his generosity, his compassion, and his fair-mindedness so many times in the past, but maybe this would be too much for even Daniel to forgive.

Silently, they made their way across the battleground to where the Stargate was shimmering, the last of the Abydonians already escorted to safety by the other SG teams.

Tightening his grip on the dead woman in preparation for stepping into the liquid blue light, O'Neill looked back the way they'd come. Another battlefield. Another set of corpses. The dead of the SGC would receive proper burial with honors but Amaunet's Jaffa would be left to rot. There was neither the manpower nor the will to bury them. He could see the tent in which Sha're had met her death, blue and gold pennants flapping in the breeze, the corpses scattered across the sandy soil, their blood adding salt and iron to the earth. And overhead one perfect silhouette against the sun; the first of the buzzards beginning a slow circular glide as it assessed the banquet spread out beneath its wings…

"Colonel?"

O'Neill gave himself a mental shake, blinking as he found himself cold and bored in the rain of a different alien world once more. "What?"

Carter was looking up from the DHD, brow creased with concern. He wondered what the problem was with the damned technology this time but sincerely hoped she wasn't going to attempt to explain it to him because life was definitely too short.

She was looking around like she'd lost something, before turning back to him with a hint of anxiety in her eyes. "Sir, where's Daniel?"

"He's right – " O'Neill turned to where he thought the younger man was then spun full circle as he found only empty space beside him. "He was right here."

Teal'c was gazing into the mist. "There is a large building on the brow of the hill which appears to be of early Earth design. Daniel Jackson may have wished to examine it."

Turning to look at the looming temple, O'Neill said, "Yeah, and the sea may be a little on the wet side this time of year. Did anyone else hear me tell him 'No'?" He put his hand up to his earpiece and said quietly, "Daniel?" As the silence lengthened, he grimaced. "Daniel? Daniel, if you're there, answer me. Daniel? Damnit!"

He exchanged a glance with Carter who immediately tapped her own earpiece and called Daniel's name herself. She shook her head. "But if Daniel is actually inside the building, he might not be able to hear us. Some kinds of stone do block radio waves."

O'Neill gave her a humorless smile and nodded at the DHD. "Yeah. Okay, Carter, leave that for now, let's just go find him before something else does."

They headed up the hill with more resignation than annoyance. O'Neill knew Carter would be secretly sympathizing with Daniel's desire to learn about ancient civilizations, Teal'c was as imperturbable as ever, and even O'Neill himself wasn't exactly surprised the archaeologist had proven incapable of resisting the lure of yet another big block of stone with some interesting squiggles on it. There were times, though – and this was definitely one of them – when he did wonder if he should just take the direct approach with Daniel, and on the next occasion when the archaeologist did something particularly annoying or dangerous, instead of patiently explaining to him the folly of his action, he should just clout him smartly around the back of the head. After all he'd been patiently reasoning with Daniel for three years now to no noticeable effect, perhaps it was time for a change of strategy. "Anyone know if he had a weapon with him?" he enquired wearily. "Or did he leave his sidearm on the ramp like that time when he stopped to tie his bootlace at the last minute?"

"He definitely had it with him," Carter said reassuringly.

"But whether or not it would occur to Daniel Jackson to use it if danger threatened is a different question," Teal'c put in.

"True," said O'Neill. "I've met rocking chairs with faster reflexes."

Teal'c looked at him sideways. "I meant rather that Daniel Jackson would be more inclined to try and converse with those who threatened him even if their attitude was unfriendly."

"I know. Why do you think we're hurrying?"

"I definitely think Daniel's got a lot better at looking after himself over the last couple of years, sir."

"Well he could hardly have got much worse, really, could he, Major?"

He grimaced after he said it, feeling their disapproval radiating back at him. Okay. They never mentioned Daniel's less than razor sharp reflexes. They never mentioned the fact that he wasn't a soldier and needed a little bit of extra protection on missions. Dissing Daniel simply wasn't done on SG-1. Yeah, well sometimes, a guy had to vent. And when Daniel scared them all silly putting himself in harm's way for no good reason was definitely one of those times.

As they reached the huge arched doorway, Teal'c glanced impassively at the sign over the lintel. "This is a temple to Onuris – a vengeful and warlike Goa'uld believed by many to be the son of Ra."

"Well let's just hope the chip off the old block isn't home because I am frankly too cold and wet to want to tangle with any Goa'ulds today, and particularly not ones whose fathers I blew to hell with a nuclear bomb."

Carter was examining the temple with close attention, running some device that looked like a Geiger counter over the entrance. "This is a stone I've never seen before, sir. It contains small quantities of naqadah, some iridium, some other elements I don't recognize which could…"

"Is it blocking our transmitters?"

She sighed resignedly at the interruption. "Yes."

"Then I'd say that was pretty conclusive evidence Daniel is in here somewhere. Let's see if we can't retrieve him while he's still in one piece."

Although O'Neill's tone was deliberately easy, he had his finger poised over the trigger of his MP-5 as he pushed open the door. Seeing how dark it was, he cautiously switched on his flashlight, ready to extinguish it in an instant if anyone fired at them. The beam picked out a towering statue of what he presumed to be an Egyptian god in funny headgear, and walls stuffed with bits of broken crockery. The light from Carter and Teal'c's flashlights was also raking the walls and floor. "Daniel?" O'Neill hissed. As there was no reply, he said more loudly, "Daniel?" He wasn't worried yet, he told himself; there was a concern, yes, just enough unnecessary anxiety inflicted upon him that the prospect of giving the archaeologist a good hard shake still had some appeal, but not yet truly worried. "Daniel!"

It was Teal'c's beam that bounced off the broken glass and O'Neill felt the tempo of his pulse change in that instant because he knew at once what it was.

The three of them crouched by the wall in silence looking at the broken spectacles. One lens was badly cracked, the other smashed. The metal frames dangled from Teal'c's fingers reflecting tiny streamers of light, the sidepieces looking wire thin and unexpectedly delicate in the Jaffa's powerful hands. Teal'c said, "They appear to have been knocked across the room, breaking on impact with the wall."

O'Neill said tautly, "Pretty much what you'd expect if someone had just hit the guy who was wearing them really, really hard."

"Sir, I don't think we should jump to conclusions," Carter put in at once. But he could tell by the catch in her voice that she was arguing with him not because she disagreed with his analysis of the situation but because she wanted to go on hoping for something better for a little longer.

"I think we should find Daniel as quickly as possible." O'Neill was already on his feet and raking the walls with his flashlight, trying to think what would have attracted the archaeologist's attention first. Looking up he saw a balcony ran around the top of the temple, two stone staircases carved diagonally into the walls leading up to it. It reminded him of a tier in a theatre, suggesting somewhere from which people could view the proceedings.

He had a horrible suspicion of what kind of proceedings would have been viewed. "Spread out, let's take a look around…" He jabbed a finger at the far end of the temple, getting a nod in return from Carter, then headed in the opposite direction. He knew what he was looking for, he just really hoped he wasn't going to find it.

A few minute's inspection, told him this wasn't going to be his lucky day. Beyond the towering statue, he found what looked suspiciously like a sacrificial altar; the metal rings in each corner of the capstone providing all the proof he needed. But he was given more anyway. Way more than he wanted. Something had stained the stone a dull red and when he looked on the floor beneath it, he saw the flagstones showed a similar rusty tinge. A discreet gutter led to a small drain. Somehow O'Neill didn't think it was for rainwater from a leaking roof tile. Bending down quickly, he put his hand to the gutter. It was dry. That was the only good news they'd had so far.

He remembered Daniel telling him about the so-called Slaughter Stone at Stonehenge in England. The one that looked as though it was stained with blood because of some kind of iron ore in the rock. He usually managed to tune Daniel out when he started telling him about ancient monuments but for some reason that explanation had stuck. Perhaps he'd been in a good mood that day and decided to humor the archaeologist, or more likely they'd just got Daniel back from the dead by the skin of his teeth and O'Neill had been ready to put up with anything, he was just so damned relieved to see him back in one piece…

O'Neill looked back at the altar, the metal rings, the gutter, the drain. The blood stains. He shivered. Definitely afraid for Daniel now, he turned to the walls, pulling out his knife and running the blade between each set of stones in the hope of tripping some kind of locking device.

When he glanced across at his teammates he saw Teal'c was trying to find anything he could turn, a hieroglyph that moved beneath his fingers, some mechanism that would persuade these planed blocks of sandstone to show them the inner door he knew must be concealed somewhere in this cavernous chamber. At the other end of the temple, Carter was doing the same thing, running her fingers over the raised symbols in the hope of finding one that would show them a door.

Having unsuccessfully searched every inch of the far wall, O'Neill joined the others. "I think these people might be into human sacrifices."

Teal'c went to examine the altar and came back looking grim. "I think you are correct, O'Neill."

When he looked at Carter he wasn't surprised to see she'd gone very pale. He was feeling pretty green around the gills himself.

She rallied before he did and her words surprised him. "That might actually be a good thing, sir."

He stared at her in disbelief. "Please, do tell me how?"

"Well, if they sacrifice trespassers to Onuris they'll have to bring Daniel back here to kill him. If they found him wandering around in here looking at the artifacts – "

"Which is so incredibly likely I think we'll just take it as read."

"Well then he'll probably be condemned to death for sacrilege." She turned to look to Teal'c for confirmation and the Jaffa nodded. Carter continued with more confidence, "They'll have to prepare him for sacrifice and then bring him to the temple to be killed on the altar. As long as we stay here, we can rescue him."

"And what if they take him somewhere else completely?"

"Why would they? If they believe that Daniel offended their god they'll want their god to witness how vigilant they are about punishing unbelievers."

"I believe Major Carter is correct," Teal'c observed. "They are probably preparing Daniel Jackson for sacrifice even as we speak."

"And that involves what exactly?"

"It varies from cult to cult but usually the would-be victim is bathed, dressed in sacrificial robes, and his head shaven in readiness."

"Oh great, two members of SG-1 with no hair, how's that going to look?"

"Sir – "

"Okay, Carter, least of our worries right now, I agree." O'Neill looked at the stone staircases again. "Right, let's go over these walls again, see if we can find a way to open them."

***

They searched every inch of the temple, using knives and fingers to try and find a mechanism to make one of those massive blocks slide aside and show them the way Daniel had been taken. All of them had determinedly insisted that if anyone had brought him outside of the temple they would have noticed it, despite the mist. But as the hours rolled past without them making any progress and there being no sign of their teammate, O'Neill couldn't help wondering if perhaps Daniel was ten miles away by now, or even already dead.

He pulled off his gloves to go over the wall again, just in case the mechanism could only be triggered by bare skin, trying to will one of these impervious blocks of strange stone to yield up something. Behind him he was aware of Carter and Teal'c doing the same; Teal'c exploring every hieroglyph with a look of grim concentration on his face; Carter trying to hang onto logic and hope when despair was doing its best to distract her.

When he closed his eyes to try to feel every stone edge more clearly he saw Daniel lying on that crisp white pillow with that 'Y' shaped burn marring his face, like the mark of Cain falsely branded on an innocent. He'd spent way too many hours in the infirmary waiting for Daniel to wake up over the years and by that point the place was really starting to get to him. He'd felt like a dog who'd had one too many trips to the vet and there was a part of him which just wanted to dig in his toes and never cross that threshold again. But leaving Daniel to wake up alone was marginally worse even than having to spend another mind-numbing, soul-deadening session by his bedside, so he'd pulled up a chair and borne it. Not without complaint, certainly, but borne it all the same.

He hated the antiseptic smell of the infirmary. The sound of all those damned machines bleeping as they told the nurses what Daniel's insides were doing now; his heart-rate, his oxygen level, his brain activity, his kidneys, his glucose levels, his mineral levels. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the best equipment money could buy and not a single machine able to tell him squat about how Daniel was going to react when he woke up and found his wife was dead and Teal'c was the guy who'd killed her. O'Neill must have rehearsed a dozen different ways to tell him the bad news and in the end he hadn't needed any of them.

He thought he'd been prepared for anything. Confusion. Rage. Denial. Tears. He'd been ready to calm Daniel down, reason with him, or put his arms around him and let him sob out all his sorrow on his shoulder. What he hadn't been ready for was Daniel waking up and asking him to believe the impossible once again…

"Sir…?"

The warning hiss made him jump. O'Neill looked up to find Carter and Teal'c both listening intently, and then he heard it too. The tramp of footsteps on the ground. People approaching. Lots of people.

There were square pillars close to the walls, the space in between each one a welcome pocket of darkness and O'Neill gestured at Teal'c and Carter urgently, wanting it crystal clear. No engagement unless unavoidable. Find a shadow and blend into it. Keep within eyesight of everyone else. Stay close. Stay quiet. Stay afreakinlive, people. Pressing back against the wall, O'Neill could see Carter in the alcove to his right and Teal'c on his left, both of them trying as hard as he was to achieve invisibility.

O'Neill had his MP-5 raised in readiness as the double doors opened, spilling fading light and faded people into the temple. Hundreds of them, skin and hair color mostly middle-Eastern in appearance, although there were a few here and there with much lighter or darker hair and skin, all of them humming with the kind of suppressed excitement football crowds got before a really important game. He didn't speak the lingo but he could see the glitter in their eyes: even the air seemed electrified by the intensity of their anticipation. They were dressed in drab robes, and he could smell from a few feet away that these people didn't believe in soap and hot water. But they clearly took their pleasures seriously because they were packing the aisles here. He caught a glimpse of a lone blonde woman whose eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed. She alone seemed indifferent to the treat awaiting her. She looked the way Sara had in the weeks following Charlie's death. Existing in a waking nightmare where she operated on automatic pilot, hoping perhaps it was reality which was the dream. Someone jostled her as she went past the place where Carter was pressed into the shadows and she brushed the tip of Carter's MP-5 without even noticing she'd done so. Behind their pillars, O'Neill and Carter exchange an expressive glance. The crowd poured past their alcoves then seeped up the staircase like people finding their places in a theatre.

O'Neill winced as he realized the significance of that analogy. These people had turned up to see something. It was obviously nearly show time.

Right on cue, the stone wall on the far side of the temple from his hiding place slid back with the faintest grating noise, revealing a tunnel puddled with torchlight. MP-5 held in readiness, O'Neill wished vainly for a smoke canister to spread a little confusion when the moment came. He didn't like the idea of firing on probably unarmed priests but he liked the idea of Daniel being sacrificed to appease a vengeful Goa'uld even less. He could only hope that some way would present itself of their getting Daniel out of there without causing too much bloodshed.

As he stared intently at the place where the wall had opened up, he saw one priest with some fancy headgear followed by two priests without, and prayed for Daniel to be the next person he saw. When he was, his heart practically did a handstand with relief. That sensation stayed with him for approximately two and a half seconds before the anger set in as cold and bright as midwinter in Maine. "Damnit to hell," he said shortly.

"Oh my God," Carter breathed from the next alcove. "What have they done to him?"

Daniel still had all his hair, not to mention his own clothes, and there was just the one mark on his face presumably from the blow that had knocked his glasses across the room to smash against the wall; a bruise on his left cheekbone which was unsightly but clearly superficial. Apart from that the archaeologist didn't appear to have a scratch on him and yet his skin had gone past white to grey from some pain O'Neill didn't even want to guess at. Daniel seemed shocked almost to the point of death; someone at whom so much horror had been thrown that his mind had shut down. He staggered along between the priests, barely aware of his surroundings, apparently indifferent even to his imminent murder on the altar of Onuris, so stupefied by what had been done to him that death would clearly come only as a merciful release. When, at a nod from the one with the headdress, the two priests seized his arms to hold him still, Daniel didn't even seem to notice.

This was why these people had come to the temple, because they were eager to watch a blasphemer put to death on the altar, pouring eagerly into the chamber to witness the sacrifice to their God. There were more priests coming out of the same walls that had been so unyielding to their examination earlier, their skin also white and repulsively hairless. O'Neill thought they looked like maggots who lived perpetually underground. The one O'Neill took to be the High Priest, surveyed the assembly with evident satisfaction and shouted out a lot of words in Goa'uld the last of which was 'Shokmar!'

The crowd took up the High Priest's words, cheering and shouting, "Shokmar! Shokmar!"

"I thought you said this Goa'uld's name was 'Onuris'? And what the hell happened to Daniel?" O'Neill looked behind the pillar at Teal'c to see if he could throw any light upon Daniel's condition, and blanched. He'd thought himself as angry as it was possible for any sentient being to get until he glanced at the Jaffa and saw the expression in his eyes. This was a rage he had never seen before. For a second his friend almost frightened him. "Teal'c?"

"They have used Shokmar upon Daniel Jackson." Teal'c could barely speak for his fury.

O'Neill turned to Carter for enlightenment but she was staring in horror and pity at Daniel's pathetically dazed progress across the temple.

"What's Shokmar?" O'Neill demanded.

"The worst torture yet devised by the Goa'uld. The device for inflicting Shokmar was as yet unperfected when I was in the service of Apophis but I heard it spoken of many times. It was reputed to cause nerve pain like the blast from a zatnikatel but one that could be sustained for as long as the Goa'uld wished without killing the subject. Though the victim appears outwardly unharmed, every fiber of his being is left screaming in agony." Teal'c swung up his staff weapon and primed it.

Carter jerked her head round in disbelief. "You can't mean to kill these people in cold blood?"

"My blood is anything but cold, Major Carter."

"Teal'c, these people are slaves to the Goa'uld, they don't know what they’re doing."

"The priests of Onuris serve their master willingly for the wealth and power it brings them, just as they tortured one who had done them no harm for the advancement they hoped it would bring them. They are unfit to live."

"Sir?"

O'Neill wrenched his gaze away from Daniel with difficulty and saw Teal'c stride purposefully out from his alcove. Carter looked at him as Daniel had so often in the past: wanting him to make everything better without anyone getting hurt. Well Daniel had already been hurt. And it looked like he might have been hurt so badly they were never going to get him back. Whatever Teal'c had planned for the priests who'd done this to their teammate, O'Neill didn't think he was going to want to stop him.

He said flatly, "Keep up, Major," then followed Teal'c. And yes, Carter, I do mean with current events. When he glanced back over his shoulder to see if she was following, he saw her shoot another despairing look at Daniel as if she was hoping some miracle would have occurred to turn him back into the man they knew, before hurrying after him.

Teal'c was already advancing into the torch-lit center of the temple. As O'Neill caught up with him, Teal'c shouted, "Kree! Cravens of Onuris! You are worthy of the god you serve!"

The blast from the staff weapon hit the statue squarely in its massive chest, the stone head toppling from the broken shoulders as the body imploded beneath it with what seemed to be deliberate slowness, before shattering in several pieces on the ground. O'Neill hadn't realized the statue was holding up the ceiling until chunks of stone began to rain down around them.

Still firing with frightening calm, Teal's strode swiftly across the temple, the terrified priests scattering like flocking birds. Without their hands to hold him up, Daniel crumpled to the floor. Not even breaking stride, Teal'c dropped to one knee, hefted Daniel over his left shoulder and was back on his feet and firing again as he turned to come back, the last blast leaving the lower torso of Onuris rocking precariously on its stand.

"Teal'c!" O'Neill shouted the warning despairingly as the last of the statue crumbled and fell with a thunderous roar, the terrible object crushing several of its priests as it did so. The statue had torn a hole from the roof of the temple as it fell and the sky was visible, stones still raining down upon the worshippers of Onuris.

O'Neill flailed at the thick clouds of dust. "Teal'c!" he shouted hoarsely just as the Jaffa strode out of the chaos unscathed. A huge piece of stone rolled past him and chips of granite scattered about Carter and O'Neill like vicious hail, but Teal'c seemed indifferent to the destruction all around him. "Come, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "Let us take what remains of Daniel Jackson away from this place."

Carter hesitated again in the doorway, distress in her blue eyes. People were groaning and dying all around the chamber, the temple was a ruin, full of dust and the scent of blood. She gazed at O'Neill pleadingly. "Sir, we can't just leave them."

O'Neill looked at Daniel, slumped over Teal's broad shoulder, face so drained of color even his lips were grey. "Actually, I think we can." He followed Teal'c out into the mist.

***

As she dialed up, Carter was torn between her anxieties over Daniel – now so frighteningly still and pale over Teal'c's shoulder – and the people they'd left dead and dying in the ruined temple. She knew the Colonel couldn't really be as indifferent to the wounded as he was pretending, he was too compassionate for that. But this wasn't the first time she'd seen that shutter come down over his eyes, the one which said he was withdrawing all consideration from everyone and everything except his team. He'd done the same thing in Hadante. Horror had been happening all around them but all it had done was spur him into a more and more single-minded determination to get the four of them out of there, and to hell with everyone else. And in particular to get the four of them out of there before anything…untoward happened to Daniel.

Daniel. She hit the last symbol and waited for the blue light to flare. They'd get Daniel home. Janet would think of a way to coax him back from wherever this 'shokmar' had sent him. And as soon as Daniel was in the infirmary, was safe and being cared for, the Colonel's natural humanity would reassert itself. He would back her request for them to return to this world with a medical team to care for the wounded, she was sure of it.

It took her a few seconds to realize there was no event horizon. No 'waterspout'. No blue light. No wormhole. No way home.

"Major…?"

"I pressed the right symbols, sir," she assured him quickly, then dialed up again, each symbol lighting up as she touched it, that comforting heavy 'thunk' as the chevron was locked in place. It had taken her a while after they'd been thrown through the Antarctic gate to stop flinching in expectation of failure as she dialed the last chevron, half-expecting every 'gate to start acting the way that one had. But that was three years ago and she'd never encountered the problem since. Having got over the experience, she now confidently expected every 'gate to engage after the last symbol lit up. Still expected this 'gate to engage as she pressed down on the last chevron for the second time. It didn't.

The Colonel's voice told her all she needed to know about how frayed his nerves were: "Okay. Now put it back how it was."

She turned to look at him. "But I did, sir. It's exactly as it was when we arrived here."

"Except when we arrived here it worked." He darted a glance over his shoulder at the smoking temple. "We need to get Daniel out of here."

"I know." Carter was already pulling off the control panel to look at the crystals. "Sir, believe me, it should work."

Through what were all too plainly gritted teeth the Colonel said, "I want to believe you, Major, but the fact you're dialing and nothing's happening is starting to affect my trust."

Carter hastily checked the connections and then straightened back up; hitting the first six symbols quickly then offering a brief prayer before the last one. When she pressed the point of origin nothing happened.

The Colonel was gripping his MP-5 so tightly his knuckles were white. She could feel him willing her to make it work. And she would make it work. She had to. They needed to get off this world and get Daniel back to the infirmary. Except it should be working now and she couldn't find any immediate cause why it wasn't and what if she couldn't do it? What if it was like Antarctica and she just couldn't figure out what was wrong…?

So clearly it was as though he was standing by her shoulder, she remembered Martouf saying 'You have to.' She flinched now as she had then. It had come as such a shock when her mind was still half-wrapped in Jolinar's memories. She'd been feeling such tenderness for him, the realization of how much he and Jolinar had been in love still reverberating through her even as she recalled the sensation of their last kiss, the taste of his dry lips against hers, feeling so grateful for his silence, the tact he'd shown in not mentioning the danger which lay ahead of her…ahead of Jolinar…So difficult not to feel affection for someone a part of her had once loved, difficult also not to feel compassion for the man who'd loved Jolinar so very much. She'd felt a sudden rush of tenderness towards Martouf in that moment and even now she didn't know if it had come from Jolinar of Melkshur or Major Samantha Carter.

And then he'd been ordering her to remember, looking at her with eyes that saw only Samantha Carter, not Jolinar, his voice so brisk and impatient. It had felt as though he'd slapped her.

"Major…?"

It was the desperation in the Colonel's voice which sharpened her mind into focus and made her perceive the obvious. She wondered how she could have failed to notice that winking red light mocking her so spitefully. As she stared at the device on the DHD whose purpose she and Teal'c had not been able to fathom, her heart sank. "Sir, someone or some thing has activated the Goa'uld device."

"What?"

She pointed to it. "It’s the only thing that appears to be working."

"Well switch it off again."

"I'm not sure I – " Her eyes widened as she saw figures beginning to appear out of the ground cloud drifting across the grey hillside behind him. "People, sir, coming down from the temple."

As Teal'c raised his staff weapon, the Colonel caught his arm. "Let’s just get Daniel the hell out of sight."

A few scrubby trees and bushes so bent and gnarled it looked as though they spent their days in combat with the soil offered the only nearby cover and they ran for it, Teal'c effortlessly keeping pace with the Colonel's loping run despite the extra burden of weight he carried across his shoulder. Carter guarded their retreat, turning circles as she brought up the rear, hoping the mist would swallow them like bad memories before the wounded worshippers appeared.

As she slithered down into the undergrowth, the whip-thin twigs lashed at her face and she flinched. Thinking of that bruise on Daniel's face she dared a glance in his direction then flinched again. He looked the way her father had in Netu, chilled beyond the bone, death-white and stunned by the savagery of the pain he had been made to endure. She remembered how in the Pit Daniel had immediately taken off his jacket and given it to her for her father. How he'd looked so close to tears on their behalf: Jacob's suffering, her sorrow. When the Colonel had made some joke he'd been horrified, as though the man had tap-danced across a graveyard. She wondered if Daniel ever realized how much he needed the Colonel to make those jokes, to stop him getting so twisted up inside with the pain of others he couldn't even function.

Now she felt like she guessed he had in that moment. She would have given anything to have his pain transferred to her because anything was easier than standing there and watching him suffering. He looked so…null, as though there was barely enough of Daniel left inside for him to ever find his way back. She turned to Teal'c, trying to read something in those steady brown eyes that didn't speak of defeat. "How is he?"

"What's our situation?" the Colonel's question overlapped her own and drowned it.

Carter peered through the trailing stems of a thornbush to see a group of people gathering around the Stargate, grey silhouettes in the mist. They were all wailing and some of them were beating their breasts, crying out for what might well have been mercy.

"They don't appear to have seen us, sir, but we're cut off from the Stargate." Even saying the words chilled her. Cut off from the Stargate on any world was the one place none of them ever wanted to be.

Teal'c was about to lay Daniel down on the ground when O'Neill stopped him. "Wait, the grass is wet and we should probably try to keep him warm. I mean – he's in shock, right?" O'Neill pulled the emergency blanket from his vest and spread it out. Teal's placed the unconscious archaeologist on it as gently as though he was made of eggshell. O'Neill didn't want to see the look of sorrow on the Jaffa's face that told him there was no point in hoping, and he certainly didn't want to see Daniel like this, frail as paper, barely breathing; he could practically feel the younger man retreating further and further into himself, still trying to get away from the pain that had found its way to every cell. "Is he going to be okay?"

Teal'c's voice was grave. "I am sorry, O'Neill. I fear that very soon there will be only the husk of Daniel Jackson left to us. Shokmar destroys all those it touches and they say its flame, once ignited, goes on blazing for many hours."

"Like a third degree burn to the psyche." Carter's eyes were bright with pity and she looked very close to tears. "How could they do this?" she breathed, pulling the blanket from her own vest to place over him.

"Because they are evil," Teal'c returned flatly. He took off his jacket as he spoke and placed it under Daniel's head. "He will not return to consciousness until the pain recedes but that will not be for many hours, and by then it will be too late. His mind will have been dissolved by suffering."

He wasn't going to accept that. Daniel was not going to end up a vegetable. Daniel was going to get better. He'd got him through that sarcophagus withdrawal and he was going to get him through this. O'Neill said firmly, "Except if we can stop the pain there's got to be a good chance we can get him back fast enough to stop that stuff burning him out, right? I mean we're talking something like an electric current applied to the nervous system, aren't we? They zap every nerve in your body and they keep doing it until there's enough current inside you to keep the charge going by itself? And just the fact of being in that much pain for that amount of time, basically overloads your brain circuitry. Is that pretty much it?"

"That is correct."

"Okay. So we have to switch off the current – we have to stop the pain and let him heal."

"Even if that were possible, the trauma of undergoing Shokmar changes its victims out of all recognition. They become what you call vegetables."

"Not Daniel." O'Neill was going through his pack, desperately trying to remember what they'd brought this trip out and hoping to God he'd been given something stronger then Tylenol. "That is not going to happen to Daniel." He didn't care how many other people that damned Goa'uld device might have done for it was not going to destroy one of his team.

As Carter did the same, throwing packets and phials onto the ground in her haste to sort through her pack, she said, "Sir, I think we need to prepare ourselves for that. Even if we can stop the pain, we can't undo what was done to Daniel. We can't stop him remembering – "

And he wasn't listening to that for ten seconds so Carter might as well save her breath right now. "Yes, we can. If the only way Daniel's going to get over this is if it didn't happen, well then it didn't happen." When his fingers closed on the preloaded syringes he was looking for he could have kissed them. "Morphine."

Carter bit her lip. "It's worth a try."

"This could make a big difference," O'Neill assured the Jaffa but Teal'c only sighed sadly and shook his head. He ripped open the packaging, trying not to notice the way his fingers were shaking a little because Daniel wasn't Daniel any more and maybe he was never going to be Daniel again. He wasn't going to think that way. That wasn't going to happen. The tremor in his fingers was unmistakable now. He shoved the syringe at Carter.

"You do it. You're better at it than I am." He wasn't just making excuses. He could give a morphine shot if he had to, but they were tricky and she was better at it, could depress the plunger that slow way you were supposed to without bruising the surrounding muscle. He was always worried he was going to be heavy-handed and push in too much too quickly. This had nothing to do with the way his hands were shaking.

She twisted the plunger. "How much?"

"All of it."

He saw the flash of surprise in her eyes. "Ten milligrams? That's a big dose, sir."

He held her gaze. "Do it."

"It'll take a while to inject." He watched her depress the plunger to send a tiny droplet of the precious pain relief to the end of the needle. The droplet didn't even quiver and he could only admire the steadiness of her nerves. Maybe when he was her age his fingers wouldn't have been shaking either. Teal'c was tugging down Daniel's pants for her, exposing the thigh muscle.

O'Neill winced as the needle went in, that endless second's pause as they waited to see if the blood welled up, then the measured depression of the plunger, the liquid being pushed in with agonizing slowness.

Carter's hands were still as steady as a surgeon's and he felt a rush of gratitude to her for that. "That's two milligrams."

"His vitals are fine. Keep going." He checked his watch automatically, making the calculations, trying to work out how long it would be before the pain relief kicked in and started to do some good.

He remembered the way every muscle cramped with pain as you fought to stay in exactly the same position, hands perfectly still, just that tiny pressure on the plunger. Only the way the muscle in Carter's jaw was tensing betrayed the effort it was costing her to keep the morphine administration so perfectly controlled. "Four milligrams."

He checked Daniel's vitals again. "Keep going."

A trickle of moisture ran down the side of Carter's face and for a second he was shocked, thinking it was a teardrop. Then he realized it was sweat. "Six milligrams."

"Keep going."

"Janet usually gives him six."

"Keep going, Major."

It seemed to take an eternity to reach eight milligrams, and another to reach ten, but at last he heard her sigh with relief. "Ten milligrams." He automatically checked his watch again. She withdrew the needle carefully then sat back on her heels, effortlessly reading his mind, or perhaps just having the same thoughts. "Morphine generally works pretty fast, so Daniel should be getting some relief within quarter of an hour or so." She looked at O'Neill hesitantly. "If he does come round you need to remind him who he is, Colonel. You need to keep saying his name."

He heard what lay behind that hesitancy in her voice loud and clear. All the other things O'Neill needed to do if there was to be any chance at all of their ever getting their teammate back: holding Daniel, comforting him, making him feel safe, coaxing him back from the nightmare in which he'd been trapped for so many hours. The unspoken reminder he was the only one of them Daniel might listen to at this time, that his was the only voice and the only touch which would reach him through the horror of the Shokmar. Carter obviously didn't know if he was capable of providing Daniel with that kind of care. Neither did he, if he was honest. But what he did know was that he was willing to try anything to get Daniel back again.

Teal'c pulled Daniel's pants back up, then covered him with the blanket again. O'Neill saw the Jaffa's hand rest briefly on Daniel's hair. Carter was putting the empty syringe away very carefully, deliberately not looking at Daniel. O'Neill closed his eyes, putting a hand up to his forehead, but it didn't help, he could still see him in his mind's eye: white, and so limp. He wondered if they would be lucky. If Daniel would sleep until the morphine took effect, and then sleep away the following four hours until the next dose. And in the meantime they'd find a way to get the DHD working again, to get him home. To get them all home.

They sat there in silence, the faint sound of wailing muffled by the mist. O'Neill checked his watch again. And again. Ten minutes. Thirteen. Seventeen. How could time pass so slowly? He wanted Daniel to wake up and be himself again. He wanted him to stay asleep until he was safe. Twenty-one minutes. Twenty-four. Twenty –

Daniel jolted rather than drifted into consciousness, curling up like burning paper as he cried: "Jack! Please God help me! Jack…?"

"Daniel!" As the younger man flinched away from him in blind panic, O'Neill grabbed him, pulling Daniel into his chest and holding him close as he struggled like something snared. O'Neill said quickly, "I'm here, Daniel, I'm here." He could feel Daniel's heart pounding against his ribcage, the shudders going through him. Daniel was terrified out of his wits. O'Neill felt the anger flare up in him again, Christ, what did those sons-of bitches do to you…? But aloud he said only: "It's okay, Daniel. "

Daniel was twisting his head from side to side. "No, please…Stop it…Please, don't…Jack…? Help me, Jack…!"

"Daniel, I'm here damnit!" O'Neill took the younger man's head in his hands and forced him to look at him. "I'm here. And you're safe. You're safe now, Daniel. I swear."

Daniel stared at him blankly and then began to struggle again, but pitifully, with no real hope or expectation of freeing himself. "Please…please, stop this, please…Help me, Jack. Please help me…Jack…?"

O'Neill felt the younger man's hands pushing at him feebly, fingers twisting and tugging at his uniform without any strength in them. Daniel's eyes were terrified blue blanks and whatever they were seeing it certainly wasn't Jack O'Neill.

"Christ, don't do this to me, Daniel …" O'Neill took a moment to suck in a deep breath, rallying his energies, marshalling his thoughts. This was a problem, that was all, a problem that had to be solvable. There were plenty of options here and he just needed to work his way through them until he found one that worked: coaxing, ordering, yelling, whatever it took to get Daniel back, but one way or another he was getting Daniel back.

O'Neill gripped his teammate by the shoulders and shook him. "Daniel! You have to get through this. You have to wake up. It was just a bad dream, okay? You had a bad dream but it's over now and you're safe. Look at me, Daniel. Damnit, Daniel, I'm giving you an order here. Now you do as I tell you; focus your goddamned eyes and look at me!" He shouted the last three words and Daniel gasped with the shock of them, like someone electrified back to life on the operating table.

He stared at O'Neill with what seemed to be no glimmer of recognition, still shuddering violently. He darted a terrified glance over his shoulder as though he expected something to come for him out of the mist, then suddenly his fingers clutched at O'Neill's jacket, clinging on as though his life depended on it as he flung himself against the man's chest, apparently trying to burrow into him as though O'Neill was a dark corner in which he could hide. "Please don't…please…I don't understand…I don't know why you're doing this…please, you don't have to do this…don't do this to me any more…"

O'Neill swallowed quickly. So Daniel had reasoned and pleaded with them? And they'd gone ahead and kept torturing him anyway? For nothing? For no goddamned reason at all? He'd thought he'd never be angrier than when those sons-of-bitches had taken Teal'c away and tortured him out of some misguided fear of demons. But at least they'd had a reason. Even if it was a really stupid reason, they'd believed in the devil, and as Sokar had been terrorizing them for a thousand years perhaps it wasn't such a dumb thing to believe in after all. But these people seemed to have done this to Daniel just for the exercise.

He collected himself with a huge effort, forcing the words out, trying to keep them gentle when he was so consumed with fury he wanted to kill with his bare hands. "It didn't happen, Daniel. It was just a really, really bad dream but it's over now. You’re with us now. You're okay." O'Neill let Daniel scramble against him, hardly wincing as the younger man gripped hold of him so tightly, putting his left arm around Daniel to hold his shoulders then tentatively stroked his hair with his right hand, trying to make eye contact, trying to make the younger man see him and recognize that he was safe. "You're okay."

"I w-went to the temple – " Daniel was still convulsing with shock, teeth chattering so violently he could hardly speak. "Shouldn't have gone…to the temple…"

Resisting the urge to say Damned right you shouldn't have gone to the temple, Daniel! O'Neill tightened his grip on him, saying firmly, "You didn't go there. You didn't go to the temple. It didn't happen. Look at me, Daniel, will you please just look at me and listen to what I'm telling you?"

He couldn't get through to Daniel and he wasn't responding to his touch, it was like trying to warm marble with his hand. He hoped that if he kept saying Daniel's name often enough, the man might remember who he was, but at the moment Daniel was bearing only the most superficial resemblance to the man O'Neill knew.

Teal'c said, "Daniel Jackson, you are safe now."

"You're going to be fine, Daniel. See, we're all here with you?"

Carter couldn't tell if Daniel was even aware of her or Teal'c. He was still shuddering convulsively and clinging onto the Colonel as though the man was a life raft and Daniel someone adrift in a storm. He looked fit only for a padded cell, and as someone who had seen him in that situation once before, Carter felt she simply could not bear to watch him go through that again. She remembered him crying and hiding in the corner, and tried not to imagine what it would be like if this were to last forever, only worse this time because at least when he had been infected by Machello's virus he had recognized them. Now, although he kept twisting his head round to look over his shoulder, back towards the temple that was thankfully hidden by the mist, when his gaze passed across her there was only terror.

Daniel was one of the bravest, most stubborn, and most resilient people she'd ever met; someone who would face down Apophis when he was unarmed and on his knees in Hell. It made her feel sick inside to think how much they must have hurt Daniel to reduce him to this. She didn't even dare to look at Teal'c but when she exchanged a glance with Colonel O'Neill she realized he was thinking the same thing because the flicker of rage in his brown eyes was chilling. Then he was wrestling the anger under control to concentrate on soothing Daniel.

"Daniel, no one is going to hurt you, do you understand me? No one. You're going to get through this. I am ordering you to get through this. Okay?" Colonel O'Neill cupped his palm against the younger man's face as he spoke, his touch considerably gentler than his words. He stroked his thumb against Daniel's face. "Come on, Danny, give me a sign you're still in there."

Carter's heart twisted with sympathy for both of them. Daniel had always brought out the best in the Colonel. She knew what it would do to her commanding officer if Daniel stayed like this. Unfortunately, right now her common sense was telling her this time they really had lost a team-member for good. This time they weren't going to be getting Daniel back. Not ever.

Still hanging onto the older man, Daniel looked back over his shoulder. " Jack…? " His throat was so sore from what must have been hours of screaming that his voice cracked and Carter closed her eyes, wishing there was some way she could make none of this have happened. If only they'd noticed that he'd gone sooner, if only they'd…

Abruptly she was back on P8X 873, ears still ringing from the gunfire, the carbine drying her throat, bodies all around her, the wounded groaning and crying out for help. SG-6 had got the Abydonians back through the Stargate but Daniel was gone. So was Teal'c. No sign of them. She hadn't seen them go. Were they dead? God no, don't let them be dead – She'd thrown down the mortar and leapt to her feet, fear making her hoarse: "Sir! Daniel? Teal'c?"

The Colonel had been at her side in seconds, voice soothing despite the obvious worry in his eyes. "Amaunet stole the kid. Daniel went after her." As Carter's eyes must have betrayed her disbelief the man had let Daniel go alone, he added, " I sent Teal'c after him."

As they'd turned to go towards Amaunet's tent, its pennants still flapping defiantly in the breeze despite the way the area was now strewn with the corpses of her Jaffa, the Colonel had looked around the battlefield, his eyes so bleak it was hard to imagine ever seeing laughter in them again. She'd seen what he was seeing but she hadn't felt it. Amaunet's Jaffa were the enemy. They would have killed them if they hadn't been killed first. You did what you had to do in a situation like that, as quickly and as efficiently as possible. You didn't enjoy it – although there was an adrenalin rush when your weapon found its target and you knew that was another ally you'd probably saved, a staff blast that might have had a teammate's name on in which wouldn't now be fired – but you didn't hate it either. It was just something that came with the territory, part of the job. But as she'd followed him towards Amaunet's tent she'd been very aware the only real difference between them was that he had seen more battlefields than she had. He'd told her once that if killing people didn't get harder each time you had to do it, there was something wrong with you, and she'd given him her most neutral smile. The one which said she was hearing him but not necessarily agreeing with him. She didn't expect it to get easier but she saw no reason for it to get harder either. If it was the right thing to do, it was the right thing to do the first time and the hundred and fiftieth time, which meant you squeezed the trigger the same way and you felt the same indescribable mixture of elation, adrenalin, fear, and shame, when your bullet hit its target.

And then that night on the tel'tak Martouf had pulled up the floodgates and allowed Jolinar's memories to intermingle with her own, and in a matter of seconds she'd seen a hundred more battlefields than the Colonel had. Suddenly she'd understood exactly why he'd looked so very weary of having to witness death.

"…Jack…please help me, Jack…Jack…"

The panic and hopelessness in Daniel's voice made O'Neill feel sick inside. Daniel didn't seem to be able to connect the person right in front of him with the name he was saying. He didn't even look like Daniel. He was this white-faced wild-eyed kid who didn't even know who O'Neill was. The realization that Daniel must have been calling out for him for all those hours while he was being tortured made O'Neill wish that he'd killed every spectator and priest in the building. This was his nightmare from Netu come back to haunt him: men holding Daniel down and hurting him while he was powerless to save him. He should have listened to his own fears; should have kept a closer eye on him, should have…He collected himself with difficulty. "I'm right here, Daniel, and so are Teal'c and Carter. We're not going to leave you."

Daniel had never looked so young or so scared. "They wouldn't stop. Jack d-didn't come. Why didn't he come?"

O'Neill felt the knife of guilt and rage twist harder. "It didn't happen, Daniel. None of it happened. You never went to that goddamned temple. You never saw their goddamned god, and you sure as hell never got captured by those goddamned priests." O'Neill pulled Daniel's head in against his chest, wrapping his jacket around him as though he was an injured pet to shelter him in the dark warmth of it. "It was just a dream. Go to sleep, Daniel. Just close your eyes and go to sleep. You're safe now. I promise you, you're safe."

He rocked him in his arms, not even noticing he was doing so at first; it was just instinctive to try and soothe him to sleep with that comforting rhythm, just as it was instinctive to hold Daniel's head against his heart so that the beat of it would calm him. He didn't even know which one of them he was trying to convince as he murmured over and over, "You're going to be okay, believe me. You're going to be okay."

Even though every muscle in his own body seemed to be locked into the most uncomfortable position it could find, O'Neill waited until the morphine had done its work and Daniel was a dead weight in his arms before he dared move. He met Carter's sympathetic blue gaze. "Well, that wasn't the most fun I've ever had." He checked that the younger man was definitely unconscious then gently unclenched Daniel's fingers from his clothing, laying him carefully back down on the blanket, pushing Teal'c's folded jacket back under his head and covering him up once more. "I think that stuff's really kicking in now so hopefully he'll sleep for a while. I suggest we give him another shot in a couple of hours and see how it goes."

Carter shook her head. "God, I hate seeing him like this."

"He is not going to stay like this, Major. He is going to get better."

She opened her mouth to say that sometimes you couldn't make things go the way you wanted them to, that willing it wasn't enough, that there were days when you just had to face up to truths you really didn't want to, but seeing his face she didn't. She said, "Yes, sir."

The Colonel had his teeth gritted, and she could feel the impotent fury radiating from him because someone had dared to do this to one of his team, and not even to learn anything, not even for any purpose; had smashed Daniel's psyche into possibly irretrievable pieces just because they could.

She tried to find something positive to say – which she didn't find easy when someone she cared so much about had been reduced to a gibbering wreck right before her eyes – but in trying to console him did think of something that made her feel better as well. "Sir, Daniel obviously does still have his own memory as well because he remembered your name."

"Daniel Jackson remembers the name he was screaming when he was being tortured," Teal'c put in flatly. "He may not remember anything else about who that person was. His memory may now begin and end with the time of Shokmar."

The Colonel said tautly, "I don't want to hear that. And I don't believe it."

"O'Neill, I have never heard of anyone recovering from the effects of…"

"So you said. And I don't care, because Daniel is going to get over this. He is going to remember who he is and who I am and every other damn thing he ever knew. The only thing he is not going to remember is what those sons-of-bitches did to him. Now is everyone clear on that?"

There was a moment's awkward silence while Carter and Teal'c didn't meet his eye. The Jaffa was looking at Daniel, so pale and still on the blanket, and there was a depth of rage in his gaze that Carter noticed was mirrored in Colonel O'Neill's. She knew that these were good men, men of integrity and honor, but momentarily, she also knew that Teal'c and the Colonel were capable of doing things she couldn't even imagine. She wondered if she ought to point out that the last thing Daniel would want was for people to suffer or die because of him. That it might help them to feel better but it would be a very poor memorial to the man Daniel had been to shed more blood on his behalf.

The Colonel turned to Teal'c. "I'm glad you destroyed that goddamned statue and I'm glad some of them died. I'm not proud of feeling like that, but that's still how I feel. No one has the right to do to another living creature what those people did to Daniel."

"I still don't understand why they did it." Carter bent down to look at Daniel, and was it her imagination or was there the faintest tinge of color to his skin that had not been there before? She so wanted to believe it that perhaps she was imagining something that wasn't there. "Or how they could."

Teal'c had his fists clenched, and Carter wondered just how much self-control the Jaffa was having to exert not to go back to the that temple and rip the heads off the rest of the priests with his bare hands. "Onuris would have ordered them to experiment with the power of Shokmar. To find out how much the subject can bear before his mind snaps. There will have been many such experiments; many will have suffered unimaginable torment before they died."

The Colonel dug the point of his knife into the ground and twisted it. "You know round about now I'm thinking that this Onuris has kind of outstayed his welcome in this particular astral plane. Time to send him to Goa'uld hell, maybe."

She inched over to the thornbush which provided the best cover, MP-5 at the ready. There was a mottled brown moth impaled on one of the black thorns and a dew-soaked cobweb stretching silvery strands across a gap in the greenery, a black and yellow spotted ladybug still struggling futilely in its grasp. She told herself forcefully this was just what nature did; a seething world happening beneath their notice every day, strange, alien and cruel. They weren't that damned ladybug and they were going to get off this damned world. All the same, she couldn't resist reaching across and freeing the struggling insect, tearing the frail tendrils of the web as she deposited the bemused bug on a thornless leaf. Get a grip, Sam, she told herself firmly. But it was difficult not to feel trapped when one glance showed her even more people now clustering around the Stargate, a faint red wink of light mocking her rhythmically from the useless DHD.

She turned back to find Teal'c still telling the Colonel about Onuris.

"…Heru'ur has been trying to take over the territories of Onuris for many years, but although he is in retreat, Onuris is still a powerful and well-protected Goa'uld. He has worshippers on many worlds."

"Yeah well, a judiciously placed hand grenade and he's still chopped salami."

"Sir, we have another problem." Carter grimaced apologetically as she delivered the bad news. "At the moment there are about a hundred worshippers crying in front of the Stargate and more coming all the time."

The Colonel looked at Teal'c. "Any idea what the Tupperware party's about?"

"If you mean the assembling of the worshippers then no, O'Neill, I do not."

As she turned to take another look at the stumbling wounded still emerging from the mist, Carter tried to take some comfort from the fact the ladybug, having tentatively tested its wings, had now launched itself into flight.

***

O'Neill had been watching Daniel edge back towards consciousness for the past half an hour, noting the way the rapid eye movement was turning to head twisting and moaning, getting ready to catch Daniel as soon as he awoke. To tell him the same lies. Except just this once he had no compunction about lying to Daniel, was perfectly prepared to look him straight in the eye and tell him any damned thing he thought would save his sanity. He was determined that Daniel was going to get better. Maybe Teal'c didn't believe it and maybe Carter didn't believe it, but he knew that Doctor Daniel Jackson was not going to spend the rest of his days as some vegetable locked away in a mental institute. He was going to make him get better, even if he had to drag him back to the land of the sane by the scruff of his neck.

Daniel erupted into consciousness like someone held under water gasping their way back to the surface, crying, "Jack…!"

"Right here, buddy."

O'Neill grabbed him quickly; pulling Daniel tight against his chest so he couldn't thrash about and hurt himself. Daniel clung to him again; shuddering so hard O'Neill could feel the reverberations going through both of them. He wished he could convince himself Daniel knew who he was and was taking some comfort from the contact, but he didn't believe Daniel had any idea who or even what he was other than something he could hang onto when the priests came and tried to drag him back to the torture chamber. He'd held Daniel as close and as tight as this after the man had tried to kill him in that storeroom; had come so near to losing the person he knew to the monster Shyla had made of him and had managed to get Daniel back that time; he just had to do it again, that was all.

He had a sudden remembrance of Sara giving birth, getting so wrapped around with the pain of the contractions that she'd forgotten her breathing exercises. He'd been telling her to breathe but wasn't getting through; then the midwife had blown against her cheek to remind her of the respiratory rhythm she needed to get through the pain. A second before she had been trapped by the contractions, but then she was mastering them, dealing with them.

O'Neill put his head against the younger man's face, wanting Daniel to feel him as well as hear him and see him, blowing on his cheek before speaking clearly into his ear: "It's okay, Daniel. You're okay. We're all here and no one's going to hurt you." But even now he couldn't bring himself to say something at once so arrogant and sentimental as ' I'm here.'

"Pain…so much pain…please no…help me…Jack, please…help me…"

Feeling the younger man shaking violently in his arms, O'Neill gently eased Daniel's head up so that their eyes met. "No pain, Daniel. Just a bad dream. See? You're not in any pain, are you?" Even as he said it, he could only hope it was true. That the morphine was doing its job.

Finally O'Neill saw a flash of something that looked like recognition in Daniel's eyes. He was still pale, scared, and trembling, but he also seemed to focus on the man who held him for the first time. "D-dream…?"

O'Neill's pity for his friend was constantly warring with his anger at what had been done to him, but he tried to wrestle that rage from his face and voice and keep his tone brisk but kind. "A bad dream, Daniel. You had a bad dream. But we're all with you. You're not alone any more and we're not going to let anyone hurt you." And this time he did say it, knowing it was what Daniel needed to hear: " I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

Confusion washed over Daniel's face, the unbearably vivid memories of being tortured obviously warring with the quiet conviction in O'Neill's voice. Two realities it was impossible for him to reconcile.

O'Neill forged ahead firmly. "You ate some poisonous berries and they gave you this really – bad dream." He caught Carter's eye as he said it to see if she approved, and after a fractional hesitation she nodded. O'Neill pressed. "Daniel? Do you know who you are? Can you tell me your name?"

"Just a – dream?"

"Tell me your name, Daniel. Tell me who you are?"

Just a dream? It seemed impossible and yet the man holding him said it with such certainty. His brown eyes held not a tinge of doubt. Daniel was riddled with doubt. Everything was blurred and confused. He remembered terrible pain, and yet it was true that there was no pain now. He remembered cold stone and strange men with dead white skin tying him down, directing a stream of blue light to fry every nerve in his body while he screamed and screamed for someone who didn't come. Screamed for –

He knew this face. So familiar. Jack , he thought, this is Jack. It was the most comforting word he knew and now he knew the face it went with again. This was the person he'd been screaming for. So Jack had come for him? Except Jack was saying it had never happened, that he'd never been in need of rescuing; the priests, the stone, the blue light, the terrible, inescapable pain, all just a dream. That couldn't be true, could it? And yet Jack was here and real. He could feel Jack's arm holding him, feel the warmth from his body. Not his imagination. Not something he was believing because he wanted to believe it. Or was it? Perhaps none of this was real and he was still in the temple. He shuddered at the thought.

"Come on, Daniel, concentrate. You can do this. Doctor Daniel Jackson. Remember him? I'd really like to say hello to him, so, come on, see if you can't find him in there for me."

That definitely sounded like Jack although his voice was a bit strange because of the way he had his teeth gritted as he was talking. It certainly looked like Jack too, although Daniel didn't remember him being this anxious; all strung up like a marionette. If it was Jack then something bad had happened to him recently; something to put that look in his eyes. Daniel so wanted this man to be Jack. If this was Jack then he was safe.

Whoever he was, the man was looking frustrated now, pointing two fingers at himself and saying, "Daniel, do you know who I am? Come on, you're looking right at me, now who am I? Tell me my name."

If Jack was real then perhaps the temple wasn't. But was this Jack and was he real? He was asking Daniel something. Asking him his name. Yes, he knew that, he could answer that. Daniel murmured it tentatively, a question: "Jack…?"

"Yes!" Abruptly the man was hugging him, rocking him triumphantly, scrunching a fist tightly in his hair as he pulled his face in against the rough material of his jacket. "Yes, Dannyboy. I'm right here."

'Dannyboy'. Only Jack called him that. Only Jack had ever called him that. Then this was Jack. And Jack would never lie to him so what Jack was telling him had to be the truth. The bad memories receded a little, like a tide unwilling to go out. Not real then. The temple, the terror, the dreadful, inescapable pain those white-skinned men were so deliberately inflicting on him: none of it real. But Jack was real.

He twisted his head round to look the man in the eye. Yes, that was Jack. The way Jack looked, felt, smelt, everything. Jack. He said it with more certainty this time. "Jack?"

"Yes, Daniel. Yes!" Jack squeezed him so hard Daniel gasped as the breath was crushed out of him. He could feel his ribs creaking with the strain but he felt much better too. He knew nothing bad could happen to him as long as Jack was holding him so tightly. Jack's breath tickled his ear again, his stubble rough against Daniel's skin as he murmured, "Oh, Daniel, you gotta stop doing these things to me before you give me a goddamned heart attack."

Definitely Jack. Definitely real and definitely Jack, so the other memories were clearly just…wrong. Nightmares. Vivid and terrible, but not real. Daniel almost felt safe again but there was so much terror and pain still lapping at the edges of his memory he needed to hear again that it had never been real. Needed to hear it over and over. "A bad dream…?"

"Just a really bad dream, Daniel," Carter assured him, preparing the morphine shot as she spoke. She didn't know how the Colonel had done it but he did seem to have comforted and bullied Daniel back from the place that Shokmar had sent him. Daniel still looked scared but with relief glinting through it, like streamers of sunlight filtering into a dark wood. She saw Daniel gaze up at the man's face and there was definite recognition there now. She saw the relief in Daniel's eyes because whatever 'Jack' was telling him had to be true.

She winced, because they were lying to him, and she hated to lie to him even to save his life, but looking at the Colonel she could see that he didn't care, was perfectly happy to look Daniel right in the eye and tell him anything that would make him get over this. He was right, she knew. Not lying to Daniel was going to leave him trapped forever in the aftermath of Shokmar; lying was going to save his sanity. She repeated the lie again, trying to put as much conviction into it as she could: "You were hallucinating, Daniel. Delirious. The poison gave you some muscle cramps so you might feel a bit achy for a few days but we think it's pretty much gone from your system now. That's what gave you the bad dreams." There, she'd done it, looked him right in the eye and lied to him.

"But you are safe now, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c added. "You are with your friends again." Carter glanced at the Jaffa and saw that although he understood why they were lying to Daniel, could see the necessity, agreed with them even, he could not quite bring himself to frame the words. He would stick to the comfort the truth offered. "We are all with you."

She was more surprised than she liked to admit to see the Colonel hold out his hand for the syringe. Very relieved not to have to be the one to administer the injection for a second time, Carter handed it to him, while saying to Daniel, "This is going to stop the dream coming back, okay? It will help you sleep."

Sleep? He was very tired but he wasn't sure he wanted to go to sleep. Bad dreams. Terrible dreams. Blue light and the pain flaring. Those priests telling him to answer, answer…Too late. Jack was pulling his pants down. Why was he doing that? There was a breeze snaking across his bare skin. It was cold. He tried to tug his pants back up again, but Jack pushed his hand away. He could feel the man's fingers on his leg, a needle hurting his thigh.

"Stay still, Daniel," Jack said gently.

It hurt. He turned his head away but it didn't stop the pain of the needle in his leg. He closed his eyes up tightly, flinching as he remembered the blue light again. Just a dream. Jack had said it wasn't real. He heard a strange little whimpering noise as the pain of the needle got worse.

"Am I doing this right?"

"Yes, sir. You're doing fine. Wait two minutes and then give him another two…"

The voices sounded very distant and the pain wasn't so bad now. He opened his eyes to see the liquid going down very slowly, and a strange fuzziness flowing into him, but it seemed to be happening a long way off and to someone else. Every now and then Jack would say a number and Sam would fuss over him. Teal'c would rumble something. Sometimes Daniel would feel fingers brush his hair, or pressing against his neck. Closing his eyes was pointless because people kept tapping him on the cheek and telling him to look up, now look over here, Daniel. A couple of times Sam dazzled him with her flashlight before she went back to having some debate about amounts with Jack.

Apparently Jack wanted to give the 'whole dose'. He was saying something about better to be safe than sorry and no way in hell did they want that pain coming back again. Sam was talking about the dangers of an overdose and saying they didn't have any Naloxone to reverse things if Daniel got into respiratory problems. Daniel had no idea what either of them were talking about as he wasn't in pain and was breathing just fine. They seemed to reach a compromise because finally Jack was taking the needle out again and giving his thigh a brisk rub, shoving the syringe at Sam, pulling Daniel's pants back up, then hauling him up by the jacket so Daniel flopped limply against his chest. He could feel Jack's warmth against his back, his arms holding him, strong fingers taking his pulse at his neck, then his wrist apparently to make doubly sure that Daniel's heart really was still beating the way it was supposed to. Sam told him he'd eaten something he shouldn't – God, Jack was going to be mad at him for doing that, he was always telling him not to – except, no – Jack wasn't mad at him, he was holding him really tightly again and didn't seem to be mad at him at all. His voice was very gentle the way it went sometimes when you least expected it. When you thought he was going to be angry with you for switching off the control on the mirror and losing the connection; or when you pointed a gun at him and…

Jack was telling him he was safe. He still didn't seem to be angry even though Daniel had obviously done something terribly wrong to put that look in Jack's eyes. Jack had been badly frightened, that was obvious, and generally when he'd had a scare he started yelling. Usually at Daniel. Daniel didn't think he could cope with being yelled at right now. Jack had such a loud yell, and that nightmare had been so vivid...Daniel shivered then reminded himself that nothing bad had really happened to him. He was suddenly very tired but this time he felt safe enough to sleep. It had just been a bad dream, and Jack and Sam and Teal'c had been with him the whole time. He hadn't been alone after all.

He felt completely relaxed now, safe but very drowsy. Jack seemed to know that without him needing to tell him because he was lowering Daniel back down onto the blanket, saying, "Just close your eyes and go back to sleep. Everything's going to be okay. Okay?"

Yes, everything was going to be okay. Jack was here, and Sam was here, and Teal'c was here, and it had all just been a bad dream.

"Daniel? Did you hear what I said?"

Daniel gave a little start as Jack said that so sharply it penetrated even the multi-colored clouds wrapping themselves around his brain. He'd obviously forgotten to give Jack the reassurance he was looking for. Poor old Jack. Better tell him everything was going to be okay. Daniel managed to focus on the man long enough to murmur a sleepy, "Okay, Jack," before his eyes closed.

O'Neill let out his breath slowly. His heart rate was beginning to return to normal but he didn't even want to think about where his blood pressure must be at right now. That kind of suppressed rage and stress and fear couldn't be good for the system. And when they were home and safe and Janet Fraiser had checked Daniel out and could reassure him the guy wasn't going to suffer any lasting effects from what those sons-of-bitches had done to him, he was going to take Daniel down to the gym and give him the self defense lesson to end all self defense lessons for what he'd just put them all through. But for the moment, he was just going to cover him up again, sit down beside him and take a few deep breaths.

O'Neill put the back of his hand against the Daniel's cheek to see if his skin felt any warmer. It did. "I think he's definitely coming back to us."

"You were wonderful, sir."

Unused to such unequivocal praise, O'Neill looked at Carter in surprise. Despite the ominous sound from the crying worshippers and the difficulty of their situation, there was joy shining in Carter's face. "And I really think you've saved him."

"I concur with Major Carter," Teal'c nodded. "In which case Daniel Jackson will be the first person to ever survive Shokmar unscathed." There was a hint of surprise mixed in with his approval as he added, "You have done well, O'Neill. I know of no other man who could have brought Daniel Jackson back from such an ordeal."

"Well, without that morphine all the back-rubs in the world wouldn't have done zip." O'Neill got to his feet. "Teal'c, let's you and I go take a look at the situation around the Stargate. Carter, keep an eye on Daniel and if anyone comes near – "

"No one's getting within fifty feet of him, sir."

O'Neill nodded but as he turned away his face broke into a grin and he punched Teal'c on the arm. "He knew who I was. He looked right at me and he said my name. He's going to be okay."

"No thanks to the people of this planet, O'Neill."

Looking at the Jaffa, O'Neill thought as he had so many times in the past that Teal'c was definitely a man it was a million times better to have on your side. And as this appeared to be the only dimension in which he and Teal'c weren't enemies, all he could say was that this was definitely the right dimension to be in.

***

Carter was trying to build up the courage to speak to him; O'Neill knew it. She wasn't generally hesitant about voicing her opinion so it had to be something she was pretty sure he wasn't going to want to hear. Well, no prizes for guessing what that would be.

He'd sent Teal'c off to see if he could overhear any of the words from the frenzied worshippers that might throw some light on their distress. All that wailing, gnashing of teeth and breast-beating had to be about something. Their statue getting totaled? The dead in the temple? If that was the case you'd expect them to be up there trying to help the wounded not all converging around the Stargate like they were expecting a sign from God.

Well whatever she wanted to say to him he wasn't going to help her out.  Determinedly refusing to make eye contact, O'Neill busied himself with checking Daniel's pulse and skin color. "He's looking a lot better. Almost back to normal. In fact this probably is normal for him. How the hell did he manage to keep that fascinating pallor of his when he was living on Abydos, anyway?"

He pushed up the sleeves of Daniel's jacket; damn things were always too long in the sleeves for him. It didn't seem to matter what clothes you put Daniel in, somehow they never seemed to fit, always looked like hand-me-downs from a big brother. But right now that was a good thing because those bruises on Daniel's wrists where he'd been restrained by the priests were a dead giveaway. But thanks to the Air Force only having heard of 'large' and 'extra large' and having no truck with 'medium' with any luck Daniel wouldn't see them. If he did, O'Neill would have to tell him that he'd been thrashing around in his hallucinogenic-berry-induced delirium and he and Teal'c had been forced to restrain him. That might work.

Of course there was the blow to the head, Daniel was going to wake up feeling that, so, okay, better tell him he'd wandered off and some local had clobbered him. That would make sense and would also provide the perfect opportunity to give Daniel the 101-reasons-why-you-should-never-wander-off-on-a-mission-even-if-you-see-something-really-interesting speech. Tell Daniel…what? They hated off-worlders around here? The assailant was going to sell him into slavery? Well, no, just stick with the don't-know-why-he-hit-you-but-he-just-did story, that would probably work the best. If they got really lucky, Daniel might not remember the Shokmar at all so they could drop the poisonous berry motif and just go with the mean local who could have done anything to him if they hadn't arrived in time story. He'd like to edge away from the whole 'bad dream' thing if he could, make Daniel's torture not just something that hadn't happened for real, but that hadn't happened even in his imagination. Ideally, he wanted that whole scene completely obliterated from Daniel's memory. Damn though, if he dropped the berries, that screwed up the 'why you have bruised wrists' story. What was that nifty little homily about 'What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive'? Well, the smartass who'd thought that one up had obviously never had to coax a teammate back from the place where indescribable torture had sent him.

Okay. Daniel had wandered off – no one would have any trouble buying that – and been grabbed by a local who'd knocked him out and tied him up tightly enough to bruise his wrists. Probably a slave-dealer or something. They'd rescued him. End of story. There – simple, plausible and –

A big honkin' lie.

I don't care, he told himself savagely.

Daniel trusts you. He trusts you not to lie to him. Ever.

He trusts me to take care of him too, and that's what I'm doing. I'm making sure Daniel stays who he is. I'm making sure those bastards don't win.

And yes, he knew damned well that Carter wanted to talk and he damned well didn't want to. So, a lot of people had died, so what? They'd tortured Daniel. They could rot in hell for all he cared. No one did that to one of his team.

"Sir?"

"What, Carter?"

"You're not going to want to hear what I'm going to say."

Still not looking at her, O'Neill said easily, "Well don't say it then."

"I have to. Sir, what happened in the temple – "

"Before or after they dragged Daniel in there three-quarters dead from being tortured by them for who knows how many hours?"

"I'm not defending them, Colonel. I think what they did to Daniel was literally indefensible, but I'm not sure that what we did was much better, that's all. We left people dying in there. Human beings like us."

"Not like us, Carter," said O'Neill savagely. "I mean that's the point, isn't it? If they'd been like us there wouldn't have been a problem."

"The same species, sir."

"I'll take your word for it."

"I'd just like to go and see if there's anything I can do for the survivors – "

"Negative, Major." He did look at her then. "We can't afford to split our forces at the moment. I think we've pretty well established that this is a hostile planet, and given what we did to their god these people are probably just itching for a chance to get even. If you should get captured, they'll do the same to you as they did to Daniel and we don't have any morphine left to get you back. So, no, Major, permission denied."

***

He'd been dreaming of something unpleasant. Probably of Jack not believing in him. Waking up in the infirmary with his mind full of memories so vivid it was hard to believe none of them were real, knowing Sha're was dead and the familiar ache of her absence had been painfully intensified into the now open wound of her death. But mixed in with the sorrow had been peace as well. How could there not be when she was at peace? Free of Amaunet at last. Her message safely delivered. She had died knowing he would find her son and keep him safe. She had died telling him she loved him. Now he needed to be worthy of that love…

Daniel blinked and tried to take in his surroundings. Not the infirmary anyway, that was something. The sun was setting to his right, filtering through a thornbush to leave crimson splinters in his eyes. He went to sit up and felt the blood throb alarmingly in his temples. "Jack…?" He looked around for him, easing himself up more slowly as he did so. And yes, there was Jack, looking exactly the way he had in the infirmary. Tense as an overwound watch, eyes full of anxiety but trying to conceal it. Daniel wondered what Jack was worrying about this time. As he sat up he automatically held onto the blanket that was wrapped around his shoulders but looked at it in surprise. "Uh – what happened?"

"How are you doing, buddy?"

"Good, I think." He winced as he moved and pain throbbed in his thigh.

"Does it hurt?" The taut way Jack said it seemed all out of proportion to that minor ache in his leg. Daniel must have done something more than ordinarily stupid to get Jack in such a lather. Except usually when Jack got that look in his eye it was only too obvious what the cause was as soon as Daniel woke up. Usually a whole bunch of aches and pains woke up with him, and when they didn't it was only because he was pumped full of morphine in the infirmary. This time he hardly seemed to have a scratch.

Daniel absently rubbed his thigh. "My leg aches. Did somebody step on me while I was asleep? What happened?" He looked around for Sam, wondering why she had that tense look on her face as well. "Sam?"

"Nothing, Daniel. Nothing happened." Jack said it quickly, darting Sam a glance as he did so.

Sam's voice sounded oddly muffed. "That's right, Daniel. Nothing happened."

Daniel looked at the blanket on which he was lying, the jacket he had been given as a pillow, Teal'c wearing only a t-shirt despite the damp misty air, the other blanket so carefully draped around him. "You just all thought I really needed an afternoon nap?" He picked the jacket up and handed it to Teal'c, making it a question as he said, "Thanks – ?"

Jack reached across and touched Daniel's cheekbone. It hurt. "Ow!" Daniel protested.

"Okay, something happened. You wandered off, someone grabbed you, knocked you out and tied you up. We thought you might have concussion. Incidentally, do you want to tell me your name?"

Daniel frowned at him. "My name? Daniel Jackson."

He couldn't understand the wild flicker of relief in the other man's brown eyes but then Jack was speaking briskly, "Very good. Date of birth?"

"July 8 ^th 1965, but – "

"Excellent, Doctor Jackson. Glad to hear you still have a few brain cells left. Now how many fingers am I holding up?"

Only after he'd made Daniel count fingers, name the last three presidents, and demanded that he said 'No', 'Yes' and 'Death to the Goa'uld!' in seven dead languages of his choice was Jack willing to pronounce him more or less fit. Daniel decided that Jack was definitely getting twitchy in his old age and clearly needed a vacation.

"Well, thanks for rescuing me...I think." Daniel frowned, trying to remember wandering off, being grabbed or being knocked out, but he was getting a big fat blank. The last thing he could remember was Jack bitching about how cold it was.

"You're welcome. Just don't do it again or I'll kill you myself."

Daniel went to smile at Jack's little joke and then saw that Jack wasn't joking. His eyes widened. "Did I screw up the mission?"

"No, Daniel, you didn't, you just got hurt – again. Plus, you scared the shit out of all of us, and it isn't like this was the first time. And – "

"Okay, I got you. And I'm sorry but I really don't remember anything. But whatever it was I did, I promise not to do it again. Except – how do you know it was my fault anyway? Maybe I was just standing there next to you while you complained about Sam and Teal'c looking at the DHD and the guy came up and grabbed me." He looked around at their surroundings for the first time and frowned. "Any particular reason why we're sitting in this – " Daniel pushed a stem of vegetation away from his face, "bramble bush?"

"That would be because the mission has been aborted but the unknown Goa'uld device on the DHD has kicked in, effectively locking out all other commands."

"Like a trip switch in a fuse box?" Daniel gratefully accepted the water bottle Teal'c put into his hand, running his tongue over his lips and wondering why the hell they felt so dry. "So – sorry to keep asking all the obvious questions – but why are we here instead of sitting around the DHD trying to fix it – or at least watching Sam try to fix it?"

"Because half the planet's population is camped around the Stargate."

Daniel pushed back the fronds so he could see for himself. "Oh. Any idea why?"

"None whatsoever."

Daniel handed the water back to Teal'c. "Want me to go see if I can talk to them?"

"No!" They all said it at once, so vehemently he jumped.

Jack said, "Damnit, Daniel, definitely not. This time just stay where you're put and don't wander off."

Daniel felt stung by the injustice. " 'This time'?"

"You're always wandering off. Every planet we arrive on, you wander off, that's all I'm saying, this time – don't."

Daniel thought about repeating his assertion that a) you could count the times when he had what Jack called 'wandered off' on the fingers of one hand, and that anyway there had always been a good reason for it, and that b) they had no evidence that he had wandered off on this trip, but decided to save his breath. When Jack was being this unreasonable there was really no point in arguing with him. Daniel shrugged resignedly. "Can I have my glasses?"

"They are broken." Teal'c handed them to him. "Only the frames were undamaged."

"Great, the part I can't see out of. The only thing worse than being stranded on an alien planet with no way of getting home is being stranded on an alien planet with no way of getting home and no way to get your glasses repaired."

Jack said quietly, "Daniel, take it from me, there are worse things."

Looking at Jack's shadowed eyes, Daniel felt slightly uneasy. As though things were being kept from him. But he still had all his arms and legs and no bits of him were hurting apart from that bruise on his thigh and the bang to his head so it was probably just his imagination. Jack was being a tad jumpy but that could be just the after-effects of Netu. They'd all been a little over-protective of each other since that trip and Daniel knew he'd been as guilty of that as anyone else. Also, Jack never liked any technology glitches because he couldn't repair them himself. He'd calm down in a little while, let Daniel go and talk to those people; Sam would fix the DHD; they'd all go home.

But when he looked across at Jack's haunted expression, Daniel found his optimism draining away. Something was wrong and he had a horrible feeling whatever was wrong might be his fault.

***

O'Neill got up as casually as he could and beckoned to Carter to come with him. "Let's go check out the wailing worshippers again, Major." The moment they were out of Daniel's earshot, O'Neill said, "I want to get him home and have him checked out by Doc Fraiser."

"I think he's fine, sir. Really. You did exactly the right thing. Those people did something to him that it was impossible for his mind – for anyone's mind – to deal with, but first you stopped the pain and then by telling him the torture hadn't happened you gave his subconscious a way to protect Daniel from what had been done to him. That memory will be walled up somewhere so inaccessible in his brain that it would probably take the deepest form of hypnosis to ever access it again. I'm not saying some dim memories of the Shokmar won't ever resurface in his nightmares but apart from that I really think he's going to be okay."

"Okay as long as we can get him the hell away from this place and back home before he starts asking too many difficult questions. As far as he's concerned he feels fine, so any minute he's probably going to suggest we go take a looksee at that damned temple."

"Maybe we should just keep him doped up?" Carter rifled through her vest pockets. "I've got a sedative."

"Keep who doped up?"

O'Neill jumped as Daniel appeared behind them. He was eating a granola bar that seemed to have been in his jacket for a considerable length of time. He offered Carter a bite, which she refused with an emphatic shake of the head. Swallowing, Daniel explained, "Actually these improve with age and for some reason I'm really hungry. Have we got any more food?"

"Blood sugar," Carter murmured to O'Neill. "It probably dropped with the shock. I should have thought of that."

O'Neill fished around in his own jacket and produced a PowerBar. "Here. Don't eat it all at once."

Daniel took it. "Thanks, but I was thinking more along the lines of that macaroni and cheese that tastes like chicken?"

"Daniel, you hate that stuff," Carter put in.

"Well, it's looking good to me right now. That's how hungry I am."

O'Neill looked at him in exasperation. "All the MREs – apart from the things you didn't throw out from the last mission which have been evolving into new life forms in your pockets – are with the equipment, by the DHD, with the wailing worshippers. Eat the PowerBar."

"You know, those people must eat something, they probably know where to get food. If I could just go talk to them – ?"

"No!"

Daniel's turn to jump as they both hissed it at him savagely. He stared at them in disbelief. "What is with you today?"

Idly, O'Neill wondered how he'd managed to go three years without picking Daniel up by the scruff of the neck and shaking him until his teeth rattled. Speaking as clearly as he could, he said, "Okay, Daniel, listen up, because I'm just saying this the once. These are Bad People. They worship a Bad God. They do Bad Things. If you go near them, they will hurt you. Do not go anywhere near them. Don't speak to them. In fact, don't even look at them. Is that understood?"

"You know, Jack, you really ought to get some treatment for that paranoia."

O'Neill turned to Carter. "Do we have any tranquillizer darts with us? Because right about now I'm thinking we should tranq either him or me before I do something I might regret."

Daniel backed up, unwrapping the PowerBar. "Fine. I can take a hint. You don't want me to talk to the locals. I'll just go sit back down with Teal'c and admire the – uh – mist."

Carter watched him go then shook her head. "I can't believe how back to normal he is. My nerves are still twanging like a guitar string. Great – Daniel gets tortured and the rest of us are the ones that need counseling. I swear he must be five eighths rubber ball."

"Well I swear I'm going to start bouncing him off something in a minute if he doesn't keep his head down." Seeing her expression, O'Neill protested, "Oh come on, Major. A kid runs across six lanes of freeway the first time you're just glad to see him make it to the other side in one piece; the second time you really don't appreciate him making you watch it all over again; by the third time you might still want him to dodge the traffic but you're also itching to give him a thick ear." O'Neill deliberately didn't meet her eye as he added quietly, "Look, Daniel may not remember it, but for the rest of my life I'm going to have live with the thought that he was calling out to me to help him while those sons of bitches were torturing him and I couldn't hear him. I didn't get there, Carter. I didn't save him."

"But, Colonel you did."

"Yeah, hours later when he was practically out of his mind. It should never have happened and if I'd ever made him realize that he has to do what he's damned well told, it wouldn't have happened. Well, it's never happening again. From now on Daniel is going to obey orders." Not wanting to discuss it further, he looked back through the binoculars. "Where are all these people coming from?"

"And why are they coming here?" Carter frowned, "It has to be something to do with that device being switched on. Maybe it's a call to arms? Maybe it's pitched at a level that we can't hear but these people can."

"Except these people look human to me."

"I'd really like to know what triggered that device." As he made no attempt to hide his thoughts, Carter said defensively, "Sir, it wasn't me."

"Of course not, Major, the fact it started working exactly six hours after you'd been fiddling about with it is obviously a complete coincidence."

Oh crap, he so knew that expression. It was the same one Daniel wore when he thought people – scratch people and make that him – were being unjust but he was just going to have to put up with it. Great. Now two of his teammates knew how to guilt-trip him.

Carter sighed in resignation. "Well maybe we should concentrate on what it does."

"Well given all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on over there I'd say it's a big fat thermonuclear device and the Stargate's been locked out so that no one gets off this world alive, and those people know it." As Carter winced at his words, O'Neill looked at her. "Now is the point when you tell me that's not what it is."

"I wish I could, sir, but the truth is I just don't know."

"But you had a look at it, right? Did it look like a bomb to you?"

"Not a bomb as we know it, but with the Goa'uld technology who can tell?"

"Well what did it look like to you?"

"I don't want to speculate with no data – "

"Just this once, Major, indulge me."

"Well, then I thought it looked like a transmitter of some kind."

"Transmitting what? To whom? On this planet? Off World? This dimension? What?"

"I just don't know, sir."

"Jack?"

O'Neill's turn to jump again. He wished Daniel would stop doing that. He turned around to find Daniel halfway through the PowerBar and peering through a pair of binoculars up at the hill. O'Neill gritted his teeth. "What now, Daniel, because in case you hadn't noticed we are kind of busy here?"

"Did you know there's a building up there? It seems to have smoke coming out of it."

"Yeah, we know. It's a ruin."

"It doesn't look ruined. It looks like it could still be in use."

"Trust me on this, Daniel, it's a ruin. We know, we ruined it. Well, actually, Teal'c ruined it. Either way it's definitely ruined now."

"Teal'c razed a whole temple?"

"Well, actually he more kind of lowered it."

Daniel stared at him in evident disbelief before looking back through the binoculars, scanning the hillside. "But why? I mean there could have been worshippers nearby. Was anyone hurt?"

"Damnit, Daniel, don't you ever stop asking questions? Look, I am having a really bad day here and you are really not helping."

Daniel put down the binoculars in surprise. "I'm only asking."

"It's a Jaffa thing, okay? The people who worship that god do bad stuff to the people who worship Apophis. Teal'c was just having a little payback."

"That doesn't sound like Teal'c."

With his eyes closed and a hand pressed to his throbbing head, O'Neill said through gritted teeth, "Daniel, I swear to God if you don't can it I'm going to have to kill you. I don't want to do it and I'll try to do it humanely – smother you or something – but that is definitely what's going to happen if you aren't over there with Teal'c sitting down and shutting up in about thirty seconds flat."

Not offended but clearly a little concerned for him, Daniel gave O'Neill a puzzled frown and as he backed away said in the soothing tone of someone humoring a madman, "Right, I'm going all the way over there to sit with Teal'c – but Jack, have you ever thought you might need a vacation?"

As soon as Daniel was out of earshot, O'Neill opened his eyes. "Carter, any chance of your people solving time travel any time soon, because I would really like there to be a way for this day not to have happened?"

She made a face. "Sir, right now, I just think we're lucky we didn't come here before we went to P7J-989 or the Gamekeeper would probably have made us live this one out on a continuous loop."

Sitting down next to Teal'c, Daniel said, "Jack seems a bit edgy today. Do you think he's been over-doing things?"

Teal'c regarded him impassively, the sunset turning the gold emblem of Apophis on his forehead the color of bronze. "Colonel O'Neill has had much to try him of late. Night will fall soon and while the Stargate is surrounded by the people of this world it is impossible for either Major Carter or myself to attempt to override the Goa'uld device that is interfering with the DHD."

"See, that's exactly why I should go and talk to those people. They might know what that device actually does. They're obviously very frightened of something. If I explained to them that we might be able to help them – "

"Daniel Jackson, you must not do this."

"I just don't see what harm there is talking to them, I mean we've no evidence that they're unfriendly – "

Teal'c reached across and touched Daniel's bruised cheekbone. "Ow!" Daniel put a hand up to his face. "Fine, point taken, but I wish people would stop doing that."

Teal'c continued, "It seems likely that the device was triggered when Major Carter and myself were attempting to ascertain its function. If that is the case then we are to blame for the consequences of its activation. The attitude of the people suggests these consequences may be grave. Given those circumstances – "

"Okay, I get you. But if we're responsible for what's going to happen to these people don't we have some kind of obligation to put it right?" Daniel looked at him hopefully.

Teal'c turned away. "We owe these people nothing."

Daniel gazed at him in surprise. "Well, can you explain it to me? I mean what have they done that's so terrible?"

"They rejoice in the suffering of those who cannot defend themselves. Those who have done them no harm."

Daniel's brow creased with his effort to try to understand. "Do you mean like the arenas of ancient Rome where Christians were fed to lions and everyone came along to watch it like it was a wrestling match? They were different times and there was a different set of moral values in place. We have a very long and dishonorable history of turning out to watch our fellow men being murdered. Um, public hangings always drew a big crowd, so did witches being burnt, or adulteresses being stoned. You pick any era in history and you'll find evidence of the human race at its worst and its best. And we have done some terrible, terrible things to each other in our time, but you can't judge the whole of the twentieth century by the Holocaust, and you can't judge every man, woman and child on this planet on the evidence of – of – whatever it is you're judging them by."

"You do not understand."

"Well then help me to understand?"

"I cannot." Teal'c added impassively, "You should rest now. Give your wound time to heal."

"Wound?" Daniel frowned at him in perplexity, putting a hand up to his face. "You mean this? Teal'c, I've had worse injuries tripping over a curb. I'm perfectly okay. Now I really want to understand what it is these people have done that you think is so unforgivable."

Teal'c rose to his feet. He looked down at the archaeologist and said sternly, "Daniel Jackson, we will speak no more of this."

Feeling as though he had just been reprimanded by a usually benevolent older brother, Daniel gaped at the Jaffa, but Teal'c didn't soften. He walked over to where O'Neill and Carter were still deep in conversation leaving Daniel to shake his head in disbelief. "What is with everyone today?"

***

Daniel had borrowed Sam's night vision goggles to observe the people gathered around the Stargate. To him they looked similar to the people of Abydos, ones whose technology had not been allowed to develop so the vast chasm between their knowledge and that of the one posing as their god would not grow any less. It still enraged him to think of all the millions the Goa'uld had abducted and enslaved over the centuries. The people of Earth had overthrown Ra and won freedom from their parasitic masters, but on countless worlds across incalculable dimensions, the Goa'uld were still disfiguring the lives of billions.

Going by the mark these people had painted on their foreheads – that distinctive high plumed headdress – he guessed the Goa'uld they served must be Anhur, the Egyptian warrior and hunter god. The name seemed oddly familiar and yet he didn't remember having researched him recently. He wondered if Teal'c had mentioned him. That blow to the head was starting to have an effect now and he remembered from past experience how concussion could do that to you; those headaches that slanted in like a stiletto when you moved too fast or thought too much about anything. The thump behind his eyes was making him feel a little odd, dreamlike and disassociated, as though something momentous had occurred which, for some peculiar reason, he couldn't remember.

"Do we have any Tylenol?" he asked of no one in particular, half expecting everyone to jump down his throat again just for speaking out loud. He didn't know why everyone else was so edgy and short-tempered today. If it had just been Jack, he would have thought no more about it, but when even Teal'c started snapping at him he couldn't help feeling that something must be wrong.

When he closed his eyes against the pain in his head, he had a strange memory of hearing Jack's heartbeat, focusing on it as though his life depended on it while his fingers clutched the man's jacket so very tightly; feeling like a child scared of the dark and this the only thing left for him to hang onto. Daniel wondered where the hell that image came from? Perhaps he had a fever. Perhaps he was getting delirious. Perhaps he was getting cross-dimensional shift to some other Daniel Jackson's flashbacks. A Daniel Jackson who was clearly a needy little son-of-a-bitch going by that memory. He wondered if he ought to toss that bone to Jack next time the guy became inexplicably irritable with him – proof positive that a Jack O'Neill in a parallel plane was having an even worse time with his archaeologist than this Jack was with his – worth a try perhaps.

Daniel opened his eyes to find Jack crouched in front of him looking disproportionately anxious. "You okay, Daniel? Have you got a temperature? Where does it hurt?"

As Jack put his hand to Daniel's forehead to test for fever, Daniel said in surprise, "It's just a headache."

"Here, drink this."

It wasn't like Jack to fuss so blatantly, but he was definitely fussing now, mixing up some unspeakable concoction and demanding that he drink it down while Teal'c and Sam clustered around him anxiously. Sam pushed a bottle of Tylenol into his vest pocket, murmuring something about him keeping them 'just in case'. He felt like a baby surrounded by a set of particularly neurotic new parents.

"It's just a headache," Daniel repeated, bewildered by their attitude. He wondered if the others really needed a psych evaluation. Makepeace had told him more than once that his total inability to look after himself was probably giving the rest of SG-1 stomach ulcers. At the time he'd just thought Makepeace was being – well…Makepeace. He'd always thought of himself as someone who was reasonably good at looking after himself, just by a slightly different route from the one the others might have taken. Now he wondered if the marine had a point, and the strain of his lack of military skills was giving his teammates a nervous breakdown. He looked around at their anxious expressions. "Guys, really, it's a slight headache. In fact, it’s not even that bad now. I think it's going."

"You'd better go lie down again."

"Jack, please, I'm fine."

Daniel was too surprised to protest when he was unceremoniously shoved down and told to stay where he was put, get some sleep, and stop arguing for crying out loud. Daniel blinked in disbelief, saying mildly, "Are you sure you're okay?"

When Jack wheeled on him in what looked very like anger, Daniel almost flinched. Jack began, "Damnit, Daniel, I am just about ready to – "

"What?" He was really unnerved now. "What is it I'm supposed to have done? What are you angry about? Why are you being so unreasonable?"

" 'Unreasonable' ? Look, you wandered off, got yourself knocked out. You could have been killed because you wouldn't just do what you were told. You never do what you're damn well told!"

"Well in the real world 'doing what you're told' isn't something you expect to still be doing much after you go through puberty. I'm not in the military. I'm not used to obeying orders. I never went through – Basic Training or whatever it is you soldier-types do – I don't expect to – Good God what happened to those people?"

Daniel sat up, staring in dismay at the people straggling down from the smoking temple, the bloodstained robes of the wounded, the unnerving limpness of those being carried, the terrible pallor of shocked faces intersected by dried trails of red. It was like the aftermath of an earthquake he'd once witnessed in Egypt; only a minor tremor according to the reports, but enough to make houses crumple into crevices, taking their inhabitants with them.

He'd felt it ripple through the site, lazy as the swish of a Nile crocodile's tail, but the epicenter had hit two miles away across the shimmering sands; the town of baked white houses and spice-scented markets from which their workers had come. He remembered running and running through the burning sand to try and reach the survivors, the diggers beside him overtaking him and every one of them knowing it would already be too late, the deed already done, the dead already dead, as the echoes faded into that moment of terrible silence before the wailing started. So much blood. It was the first time he'd ever realized how much blood there was in the human body; how terrible was the sound of people scrabbling as they suffocated while you dug and dug like a madman but knew you weren't going to reach them before the air ran out…

When a hand closed on his arm like a manacle shutting fast he couldn't work out what it was; tugging against it blindly in his automatic desire to go forward and offer these poor people what help he could. It took him a moment to realize there was definite resistance, something physically holding him back, but he was still astonished when he turned to find that it was Jack's fingers gripping his arm so tightly his knuckles were white.

Daniel stared at him in disbelief. "Jack? We have to help these people."

He waited for Jack to sigh in exasperation and tell him that of course they had to help these people and they were going to but first they had to…something or other to do with military procedure, and he'd already decided he wasn't even going to argue it if that would get things moving faster, but instead Jack said, "No, we don't."

Daniel's eyes widened in disbelief. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we don't have to help these people."

Daniel made to pull his arm free but the fingers just tightened. Daniel winced in pained surprise; it was like having steel claws digging into his skin, what the hell was with Jack today? "Jack?" Another tug didn't loosen his grip either and Daniel realized with a sense of shock that Jack was hurting him; holding him so tightly he was actually hurting him.

O'Neill realized it in the same instant Daniel did. Although he could have argued against helping the people who had poured into that temple to rejoice in witnessing someone blameless first paraded as a tortured husk and then butchered at the altar; could have argued that no trouble at all, the shock in Daniel's blue eyes at being hurt by him dissolved his grip like boiling water on an ice sculpture.

As O'Neill abruptly released him, Daniel continued to stare at him, not just shocked now, incredulous as well. Daniel glanced back at the people and then looked from O'Neill to Teal'c, finally taking in their impassive faces, their determinedly defiant expressions. He backed up. "I don't know what's got into you, but we have to help these people. Sam?"

She shot O'Neill a beseeching glance and he caved, shrugging helplessly, "Oh for crying out loud, go with him if you want to."

And, of course, after what had happened earlier, there was no way he was letting Daniel move more than ten feet away from him, so if Daniel was going among these damned people that meant he and Teal'c were too, but one day soon he was going to teach Daniel to obey orders. Get Mackenzie to try some of that hypnotic suggestion against a background of mood music and see if that didn't work, or play Daniel a tape while he was asleep that told him everything Jack O'Neill said should be agreed with without question. There had to be some method by which Daniel could be persuaded to do what he was damned well told. Except, of course, he didn't want Daniel to obey him without question, he wanted Daniel to use that brain of his to come up with different strategies than this Air Force colonel could think of, but he also wanted Daniel not to keep coming up with plans that got Daniel hurt. And one day he was going to think of a method to get the benefit of the first without the disadvantage of the second. One day.

Even when the worshippers screamed and scattered like sheep surprised by a wolf as Teal'c strode amongst them, Daniel didn't manage to do the math. O'Neill knew he was going to, because although Daniel had moments of surprising denseness, he was generally way too clever for his own good. So Daniel was going to work out what these people were crying out; why they were throwing themselves on their knees in supplication or gathering up their wounded and trying to run away; but for the moment Daniel wasn't quite there yet, so the rest of them had a tiny respite in which to try and head off Daniel from colliding with a memory that could snap his mind like a frozen cobweb.

"No, it's all right. We won't hurt you…Teal'c isn't in the service of Apophis any longer, he's a good man…" Daniel turned to Carter and shrugged helplessly. "I can't seem to get through to anyone."

It looked like some chapter from the Bible had got up and walked. People in ragged blood-spattered robes holding up their hands in supplication to the Stargate, pleading for mercy they already knew they weren't going to receive. The mist swallowed the stragglers, putting damp jewels in everyone's hair, sucking color from the scene until everyone and everything came only in different shades of grey. Everywhere he looked O'Neill saw fear and suffering. These people were terrified and many of them were injured; the consequences of that moment when Teal'c had blasted the statue of Onuris so they could snatch Daniel back from his torturers revealed in every crushed limb and blood-weeping wound.

O'Neill wasn't sure he cared. He could still feel the anger inside him and right now it didn't feel like it was ever going to fade. Those priests had tortured Daniel for no reason, and these people would have rejoiced in watching him die even though he'd never done them even a second's harm. It was difficult to mourn the loss of men with that mentality. Hard not to feel the universe could probably spare them. At the moment he was much more worried about Daniel managing to communicate with these guys and what the consequences would be for his presumably very fragile psyche. The last thing he wanted was for Daniel to remember one second of what those sons-of-bitches had put him through, but if he found a way to talk to these people…

Looking across at Daniel, trying so gently to persuade one of the wounded to communicate with him, O'Neill felt a fist tighten around his heart. Daniel was doing that thing of putting a hand to his chest and saying his name so invitingly while smiling in a way that would surely banish anyone's fear. He was going to find a way to talk to one of the locals. It was what Daniel did.

Carter darted a quick glance at O'Neill. "Colonel…?"

Yes, Carter, reading you loud and clear. They were heading for inevitable disaster here and they all knew it, but what was the alternative? Daniel was a man with very clear ideas of his own, he wasn't going to walk away from a lot of wounded people just because O'Neill told him to, but sooner or later one of these wailing locals was going to mention the word 'Shokmar' and then…He grimaced. "I'm open to suggestions, Major."

Carter shrugged helplessly, clearly having nothing to suggest. When she looked enquiringly at the wounded, he sighed and waved a hand. Let her help them if she wanted to, at least that way she might be able to interrupt before Daniel learned something that would hurt him. With his MP-5 still tightly gripped in his arms, O'Neill watched Carter catch up with Daniel. She was trying to help him coax people back so they could help them while the injured screamed and wailed and made signs in the air to try to ward off the devils who had come to wreak their vengeance upon them.

It was getting harder and harder not to feel guilty. It was the Black Ops O'Neill who'd watched those priests get crushed beneath that fallen statue in the temple and felt hardly more than a twinge of remorse, and it was that O'Neill he wanted to be right now. He didn’t want to care that these people who would have sat there and watched Daniel have his throat cut or his heart torn out to appease their damned god, were wounded and frightened, that some of them were cradling loved ones who were dead or dying in their arms. He wanted to walk right past them all and not even give a damn.

He turned to look at Teal'c and saw the same misgivings in the Jaffa's eyes. Daniel had no idea what this was like. Daniel might think he'd done some bad things in his time, but Daniel didn't know what bad things were. Daniel's bad things came under the guise of being a little thoughtless, or making an unkind remark, or having a moment's selfish abstraction. Daniel didn't know the kind of memories he and Teal'c had to live with every day; the stuff they'd seen and done, and not prevented, or been a part of, however unwillingly. He certainly didn't know how it felt to think that there was a part of yourself you'd done with forever and then find it was alive and well within you still, just waiting for a chance to taste some more blood.

He knew Teal'c had done worse than he had, because the United States Military certainly wasn't up there with Apophis. Teal'c had served a monster so it was a fair bet to say he'd been a part of some fairly monstrous things, and now all their Halloweens were coming back to haunt them. And part of him really wanted to blame Daniel for this. And, oh Christ, don't tell him that was a child that woman was carrying, and what kind of woman would have taken a child to see a man murdered anyway? Their fault. Keep making it their fault, the people you'd wronged, it was the only way to get through something like this. Remind yourself that child might have grown up to be a priest who tortured innocents, that these people were the enemy, all of them, actual or potential, present, past, or future. And that guy's arm looked like it had been trapped in a meat-mincer, and there was so much blood around here. And how could anyone think with all this wailing and sobbing going on?

"O'Neill," Teal'c's hand closed on his arm. "Are you unwell?"

He collected himself. "I'm fine. Just worried about Daniel."

"What are you intending to tell him?"

"I have no idea."

Daniel was darting from person to person, attempting to comfort them. He had his medical kit open and was trying to persuade the wounded to let him look at their injuries. Carter was doing the same thing. They had nothing like enough medical equipment for this many wounded, but they were doing their best and Daniel was getting through to them. O'Neill had been afraid of that. No one could see the compassion spilling in those blue eyes, hear the gentleness of that tone, and think Daniel was an avenger. He was kneeling in the mud beside a man who'd been trying to drag himself across the ground to get away from him, but Daniel had managed to convince him that he only wanted to help, and –

Shit, shit, shit! They were communicating. A lot of sign language and Daniel repeating words then drawing pictures on the ground but they were definitely holding a kind of conversation, working out those variations of regional pronunciation so that they could have a full and frank exchange. Other people were daring to come back, edging toward Carter and Daniel. O'Neill raised his MP-5 in readiness in case anyone started getting nasty, but these people were more like incredulous, some of them tentatively reaching out to touch Daniel's jacket. The crying and wailing was turning into recognizable speech. Speech Daniel was trying to decipher. Speech containing the word 'Shokmar'. Teal'c and O'Neill exchanged a glance and then started running.

"Daniel – ! O'Neill slammed on the brakes breathlessly.

Daniel held up a hand. "Just a minute, Jack." He turned back to the man. "You said 'shokmar'? I don't know this word, what is 'shokmar'?"

But the injured man was gazing up at O'Neill and Teal'c in horror, raising his hands to ward them off. Daniel looked over his shoulder at them and sighed impatiently. "Jack, will you say something reassuring?"

O'Neill shrugged, keeping his face a careful blank. "What would be the point? They don't speak English."

Carter came over, wiping her hands, blood spattered on her uniform from tending to someone's wounds. "Have they told you anything, Daniel?" She kept her voice carefully non-committal.

Daniel sat back on his heels. "Well they keep calling Jack and Teal'c 'avengers' and they keep calling me 'one who has endured' or 'one who has survived' and then this 'shokmar' word that I don't know. I'm guessing it's something to do with 'gate travel, but I don't know why they're not applying it to all of us. I mean we're all dressed the same so I would have thought it was obvious we all got here the same way." He looked around at the Jaffa. "Teal'c, do you know this 'shokmar' word?"

Teal'c said carefully, "I doubt that it has anything to do with the Stargate. As you pointed out, that would apply to all of us."

A young woman came up, looked at Daniel and then clasped a hand to her mouth before sending up a cry of disbelief and astonishment. "Tew! Tew Setepen!"

Daniel frowned and turned to look up at her. She was beckoning frantically to others and those already clustered nearby were nodding and pointing at Daniel as well.

O'Neill said quietly to Teal'c, "Okay, what's happening now?"

"They are referring to Daniel Jackson as – "

Daniel was shaking his head in confusion. "Wait, I don't understand. 'The one who has been selected'? Selected for what? By whom?"

"Not the 'one who has been selected', Daniel Jackson," said Teal'c quietly. " 'The Chosen One.' "

"Chosen One?"

Daniel's astonishment was only matched by O'Neill's. Then the older man's fingers tightened around his MP-5 and he pulled Teal'c a little way out of earshot, whispering rapidly: "They're calling him that because Daniel was chosen for sacrifice? Because he was supposed to die in the temple?"

"No, O'Neill. The phrase they were repeating before was 'The One Who Has Survived Shokmar'. You must remember that to survive Shokmar and emerge unscathed is impossible – or at least in these people's culture it is considered to be impossible."

Carter appeared so quietly at his elbow that O'Neill jumped when she said thoughtfully, "So, to these people, Daniel walking among them unhurt and in his right mind is like a – miracle."

"Indeed."

"Just hold on a minute. You're saying that they're calling Daniel the 'Chosen One' like we might call someone a – god or something?"

"To these people, O'Neill, Daniel Jackson walking among them unscathed is comparable with the story in your Earth Bible which tells of Lazarus and his resurrection from death."

"This day just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but they're acting like this is a story they already know." Carter turned and looked at the people again. "I don't think Daniel just surviving Shokmar would cause this kind of reaction. They might be astounded but I think they'd also be hostile, wonder what kind of bad magic we'd used to get him back, but they're not – they're acting as if they were almost expecting this."

O'Neill looked across at his bewildered teammate, who was now surrounded by a growing group of locals who were tentatively reaching out to touch his hair or clothes. Oh great, this was like that scene on Abydos where the people had clustered around Daniel to bid him farewell. He didn't want to think of these people like Skaara and Kasuf. These were the enemy. These were bad people who hurt good people who'd done them no harm for no reason. Those were the men he and Teal'c had left groaning and bleeding in that temple, not these.

"Jack?"

He turned round to find Daniel looking at him with one of his little frowns denting his forehead.

"Yes?" O'Neill said wearily.

"You don't look so good."

"Just getting too old for this shit."

"What?"

Christ! Had he said that aloud? O'Neill collected himself quickly, "I mean – it's been a long, bad day, and it just seems to keep getting longer and badder."

"That's what they're calling it too. A herew bin." Daniel waved a hand to encompass the people still cradling their wounded, or plucking curiously at his clothes. "Which seems to be like what we might call a Dies irae or a Dies nefastus."

"Which would be what I would call – ?" O'Neill prompted.

"Um – a really bad day, Jack."

O'Neill closed his eyes, wishing everyone would just shut the hell up. Some of them were repeating the same thing over and over, about ten words, none of which he recognized; others had one phrase they kept saying; and at the same time 'Shokmar' kept being murmured but he couldn't work out which of them were whispering it, like something rustling in the grass you could never find even when you shone your flashlight right where it had been a second before. Like Mass; all those words in a language you didn't understand which nevertheless made you think of all your sins.

God, he hadn't been to Mass in so many years, decades even. He'd been dragged along there a couple of times when staying with his grandmother and had damned near died of boredom. So how come he could still remember the scent of incense, remember the rustling of prayer books, the smoke from candles burning for the departed? The sound of words he'd never known the meaning of; just something you said and kept saying and then suddenly, one day, no longer said, and thought that you'd forgotten. Dies irae, dies illa…

O'Neill sat down on a tump of grey stone and took off his cap, running a hand through his hair to feel something familiar against his fingers. He couldn't even remember now what color his hair had been ten years ago. He couldn't remember who he'd been ten years ago. Someone with a son and blood on his hands. Now he was someone without a son and with blood on his hands, but for a while there he'd felt clean again. Had Charlie's blood washed all the other blood away? He'd felt reborn when he came back from Abydos, to nothing and no one, to an empty house and an inexplicable optimism, a hope that came from knowing there was so much more Out There than he'd ever dreamed of. Perhaps that year he'd spent looking outward had given all the sores inside himself time to heal, because the next time he'd dared to look within himself it had felt like a cleaner better place than he remembered it.

"Dies irae, dies illa,

Solvet saeclum in favilla,

Teste David cum Sibylla."

"Jack?"

O'Neill gave himself a shake and jerked his head up to find Daniel looking at him anxiously. The sun was going down behind the hill, turning the temple the color of blood, gilding Daniel's hair so he had a nimbus of red-gold around him. Damnit. He didn't want Daniel looking like a saint. Saints were only saints because they'd died a horrible death for their faith. Daniel was looking really worried now. He couldn't read his mind, could he?

"What?" O'Neill demanded roughly.

"You were speaking Latin."

"Don't be silly, Daniel. I don't know any Latin."

Daniel bit his lip, blue eyes filled with concern. "That's why I'm worried. Is it the language of the Ancients coming back? Does your head hurt? Do you know who you are?"

No, Daniel, I have no idea who I am and neither do you… He had to start acting more like himself and quickly. Jack pulled his cap back on. "Just something from my – You never went to Mass on All Souls' Day?"

"No, I never – Wait – Dies irae, dies illa: 'That day, the day of wrath/Will turn the universe to ashes/As David foretells and the Sibyl also.' You were saying a prayer for the dead?"

O'Neill couldn't bring himself to meet the younger man's gaze. "What? I can't do that?"

"Is O'Neill unwell?"

"Daniel, is the colonel okay?"

Now Daniel was shielding him from Teal'c and Carter. He could hear him murmuring to them soothingly, "No, it's all right, it's just a tradition we have on this world, Teal'c. All Souls Day, it's the day following Halloween. It came about when a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land took refuge on an island during a storm. He met a hermit who told him that among the cliffs on the island was an opening to the infernal regions where one could see the flames ascending and hear the groans of the Damned. The pilgrim told what he'd heard and seen to Odilo of Cluny, an abbot, who appointed the day following All Hallow's Eve to be set aside for prayers for those souls in purgatory. Jack's fine. It's not the Ancients' language, it's just a – a prayer for the dead."

See, he hadn't known any of that. He hadn't even known what those words meant, he'd just known they were something you offered up for those who had sinned and were suffering. He hadn't even known if he was saying them for the people here or for himself. Maybe Daniel could tell him that as well.

"O'Neill does not generally say prayers."

"Yeah well, Jack doesn't usually have people waving their dead and dying in his face, Teal'c. Just – give him a minute."

It should have been him shielding Daniel from this; should have been Daniel sitting here with the nausea churning in his guts and O'Neill protecting him, telling Daniel it was going to be okay, everything was going to be okay. When had it happened that Daniel started protecting him ? Oh yes, that was right, from the beginning. From the moment Daniel had leapt in front of him and got himself killed…

O'Neill shivered and got to his feet. "I'm fine, Daniel."

"You sure?"

They were clustering around Daniel again. If he didn't stick close to him, they were going to enfold him and carry him off, but sticking close to Daniel meant being near to them and he hated that idea. Jack set his teeth as tentative hands reached out again, some of them had wounds on them, others had bloodstains. They were clutching at the edge of Daniel's jacket, tugging at his sleeves, a few of the braver ones reaching for his hands. Daniel was murmuring soothing things to them all, trying Egyptian and English: "I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not him…ne ne tew setepen…not the one chosen." Daniel looked to Teal'c for assistance. "They're speaking a variant dialect, Teal'c, and I'm having a lot of trouble with it. I'm trying to learn their vowel sounds but I'm not sure they're understanding what I'm saying."

As Teal'c came closer, the crowd gave off gasps and cries of fear. Daniel quickly reached out to touch the Jaffa on the shoulder. "Ne ne kheftey. Khenmes. Not an enemy. A friend." He patted Teal'c gently on the arm, "Khenmes." Out of the side of his mouth, Daniel murmured, "Jack, would you come over here and smile, please?"

O'Neill and Teal'c exchanged another glance and then O'Neill unwillingly took a step closer. Daniel reached across, caught him by the sleeve and towed him right into that morass of suffering and wounded, then touched him gently on the chest, saying, "Khenmes. Khenmes nefer."

"What did you just tell them I was?" O'Neill tried to repress another wave of nausea as he smelt unwashed bodies and fear much too close to him.

"Well, it's not a very exact language, and these people are speaking a variant of it I don't fully understand so I just told them you were a – a handsome friend, which is as close as I can get to saying you're a good man given the limited vocabulary I have to work with."

"'Handsome friend' is probably more accurate. I can live with that."

Daniel shot him a withering look before patting O'Neill on the chest again and addressing the ragged wounded encouragingly: "Seshmewen. Seshmewen."

O'Neill frowned as the people backed up shaking their heads. "They didn't seem to like that so much."

"I told them you were our leader. At least I hope I did."

The wounded were going back to their muttering and wailing again and O'Neill glowered. "Damnit, Daniel, these people are giving me a headache."

He saw one man with a crushed hand scrabbling pitifully at Daniel, his broken fingers pawing at Daniel's leaving a crimson trail. "Don't!" O'Neill shuddered in revulsion, and pushed the man away. "Don't get blood on him."

"Jack?" He collected himself to find Daniel staring at him in bewilderment. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Carter coming over to them saved him having to answer and he was frankly glad of the reprieve. Daniel automatically pointed at Carter and murmured soothingly, "Khenemset. Friend."

As the people began their horrible chanting again, closing back in around Daniel like waves around a rock, O'Neill pulled back out of the crowd and turned to Teal'c. "Are you getting anything they're saying?"

"They think we are not human."

O'Neill's jaw tightened. "You mean 'inhuman'?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "No, O'Neill. They think we are avatars, come to avenge and protect the Chosen One from the wrath of the False God and his followers."

O'Neill stared at him blankly. "They – what? We – what? What?"

Daniel was saying, " 'Hunay-nadar?' I don't know this phrase…Wait, you mean hewet-nejer? The temple? Many – henay? Hedi? Hedi? Many – wounded? Met? Many dead? Tjen? Where? Up there? In the temple?" He pointed up the hill. "Hewet-nejer? Er-hur im? The temple? Up there? Hedi er-hur im?"

The wounded were all chattering at him like squirrel monkeys, waving their arms and telling him everything at once. How the hell did Daniel manage to make sense of it all? But he would, that was the problem, he would make sense of it eventually.

O'Neill had known this moment was coming and he needed a strategy to deal with it. Now. That was what he did, after all, found strategies to cope with difficult situations. That was all he did. He didn't understand how the 'gate worked that got them where they were going, and half the time he couldn't speak to the people they met when they got there. He didn't understand the mentality of the Goa'uld, or the science by which they maintained their show of divinity; but he was the leader because when a situation like this came along, he had a strategy ready with which to avert the crisis, to keep his team safe. Except he didn't. Not this time. All he had this time was the smell of blood in his nostrils, the memories of screams in his ears, and a lot of words he'd never believed in repeating in his mind like a child's lullaby playing over and over on a broken music box.

"We need to go to the temple."

Daniel was looking at him expectantly while someone's blood dried on the front of his jacket. And here was the moment when he needed to have that strategy ready. A convincing reason why Daniel shouldn't go and tend to the dead and dying he and Teal'c had left there under chunks of broken stone.

"Jack?" Daniel was getting impatient now. "There are people still trapped up there. I can't understand a lot of what they're saying because they keep saying 'tewet': that the 'tewet' brought down the other 'tewet' which I can't make any sense out of and then something about a False God. But there definitely seem to be people still trapped under the rubble so I think we need to get up there right away and see what we can do for the survivors."

"No." He didn't know where it had come from, and he'd been kind of hoping that when it arrived it might have a plausible reason accompanying it, the way hoodlums wrapped a note around a brick before they threw it through someone's window. But it was a start.

Daniel raised his eyebrows, evidently not quite trusting his ears. "I'm sorry – ? Did you say...?"

"I said 'no', Daniel. And I meant it." He hardly recognized his own voice. It was a flat, dead tone he'd certainly never used to Daniel before, but at least the words were coming now. "In case you've forgotten, we're trapped on an alien planet because in the time it took to go and get you back from where you'd let yourself get taken, the DHD stopped working. Now my first priority is to secure our escape and that means we don't go anywhere or do anything until Carter and Teal'c have managed to fix the DHD so we can get out of here."

And there had been a time, what, maybe two, certainly three years ago, when that might have done it: cold eyes, sharp tone, sound really definite, he'll flounce a bit but he'll probably cave. Not any more. This Daniel wasn't having any of it. This Daniel pursed up his mouth and then said, "That's fine, Jack. And while Sam and Teal'c are fixing the DHD, you and I can – "

"We can guard them while they work, Daniel, the way one does with one's teammates." Nasty. Below the belt. Imply that Daniel wasn't a team player. That would get to him because there had been a time when Daniel hadn't been a team player. And yes he was playing dirty but Daniel's sanity was hanging in the balance here. So was their friendship. But he could get that back as long as he went over to Daniel's place with a case of cookies, a six pack of really good beer, and did enough groveling. Told Daniel he was sorry about biting his head off but it had been his wedding anniversary or the wailing worshippers and their wounded had reminded him of something that happened back in Nicaragua or whatever. He'd throw himself on Daniel's mercy and Daniel would forgive him. What he couldn't get back with some fast talking, beer, and imported candy was Daniel's sanity if that temple took it from him a second time.

Anyone else would have probably said 'Screw you' and walked off but Daniel had an unshakeable conviction that reason worked better than either bullets or insults. He took a deep breath and then said, as reasonably as O'Neill had feared, "I understand that, Jack. But I'm sure Teal'c could guard Sam while she worked on the DHD, and in the meantime you and I could go up there and just see if there's anything we can do for the – "

"No, Daniel. That is not an option." He hated the sound of his own voice. How dead and angry it seemed. As though he didn't even like the person he was talking to. As though Daniel had never been and never would be anything other than a nuisance to him. He remembered the comforting warmth of Daniel's body against his in the tel'tak. Daniel telling O'Neill he granted him absolution for anything that might happen to him on a mission; remembered Daniel shouldering his weight in Netu. Remember him screaming your name as they tortured him and you didn't come for him. Yes. Daniel shuddering with terror and clinging to him like he was driftwood, and Daniel the last survivor from a shipwreck…

"I'm not arguing with you, Jack. You want to stay here, you go right ahead, and while you're doing it, I'm going to the temple."

"No, you're not!" He snapped it out and suddenly there was silence. No wailing, no chittering, no moaning, no crying. Hushed expectancy as the purple dusk fell around them, sucking the last of the color from the sky.

Daniel was half turned away from him but he saw the muscle in the younger man's jaw clench and tighten. Daniel didn't like arguments very much but he wasn't going to back down. He knew he was right and when Daniel knew he was right you couldn't shift him with anything less emphatic than a length of two by four around the back of the head, and even then it only worked for as long as he was unconscious. Not looking at him, Daniel said quietly but very precisely, "I'm going to the temple."

O'Neill caught Daniel by the shoulder and spun him around to face him. "If I have to lay you out I will, but you are not going up there."

Daniel stared back at him in exasperation. "There are people dying!"

"I don't care."

Daniel gritted his teeth. "You said it was Teal'c who destroyed the temple. Is that true? Did you do this when you were looking for me? Did you know there were people wounded up there and just leave them?"

"You're not going to that temple, Daniel." He said it as quietly and precisely as Daniel had done, giving each word a little more space around it than usual, like rain drops dripping into a tin mug.

"Jack, I don't even know who you are right now. I'm looking at you and I have no idea who I'm talking to."

"You're talking to someone who's not letting you go to that temple." O'Neill grabbed Daniel by the jacket and began to drag him back towards the DHD.

He was aware of Teal'c and Carter hovering and he knew their loyalties were split straight down the middle, that he couldn't rely on them to back him up here. They wanted Daniel kept safe as much as he did but he'd just crossed a line they wouldn't have. He couldn't think of any set of circumstances under which Teal'c would manhandle Daniel, and there was a big question mark over how long Teal'c would stand there and let him manhandle Daniel.

Daniel wrenched himself loose and faced him in angry confusion. "If you're going to hit me, you go right ahead. Knock me out. But when I wake up you're going to have to hit me again. And again. Because as soon as you stop hitting me I am going up there to try to help those people."

For one crowded second, O'Neill thought he could do it. His fingers tensed and his right hand formed the fist he was going to need to get this job done. He saw Daniel try not to flinch in readiness because Daniel had experienced a right hook from Jack O'Neill before and knew how much it hurt. But then O'Neill realized that whatever his hand might be doing about getting ready to hit Daniel there was no will to accompany it. Under the influence of the Touched virus he'd been capable of pounding Daniel senseless. Standing here in the mist with the sun going down and the echo of Daniel screaming his name still ringing in his ears, he just wasn't. He saw Daniel read it in his eyes, saw him sag a little in relief. Damn it – now they both knew he wasn't capable of carrying out his threat.

He wasn't quite ready to give up on his plan yet, though. O'Neill turned to his teammates, jerked a thumb at the linguist and said, "Teal'c – hit Daniel."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and gave O'Neill a look that told him very plainly that hell would freeze over first.

O'Neill gave Carter a hopeful glance but she emphatically shook her head. "Not a chance, sir."

"You can shoot him instead if you like, I don't mind."

"No, sir."

Sighing, O'Neill let his hands fall to his sides, shrugging, defeated. "Okay, Daniel, you win. We'll all go."

The relief on his face unmistakable, Daniel just nodded. "Fine."

O'Neill had hoped they could shake off the wailing worshippers for this trip, but they all seemed to have decided that wherever Daniel went was the place they had to be. As they made their way back up the hillside towards the temple for the second time that day, SG-1 were escorted by a large group of the indigenous population. The same group who had made that trip to the temple to watch Daniel killed, now apparently all eagerness to see him return to the place of his torture for a reason O'Neill couldn't even guess at. But he couldn't pretend they seemed to mean Daniel any harm; they were looking at him with a mixture of hope and reverence that certainly contained no hostility. They were acting as though they'd been waiting for his arrival for a long time, but if that was the case then why had they been so happy to watch him murdered earlier? No one had uttered a word of protest when Daniel had been dragged in half-dead, yet they seemed genuinely pleased by his – resurrection. Even remembering these were people from a different culture and, as Daniel was always telling him, you had to make allowances for cultural differences, he still thought their actions and reactions made no sense whatsoever.

They were still murmuring something about 'Shokmar', and calling Daniel something which even he now recognized was their version of 'The Chosen One'. Many of them were injured, of course, so were struggling painfully after SG-1, while even the more able-bodied were clearly torn between the magnetic attraction Daniel seemed to hold for them, and the fear the sight of Teal'c and O'Neill caused them. Carter, by comparison, seemed to command a tender respect. The people were gazing at her with a kind of fond wonder. The way his grandmother had used to look at that statue of the Virgin Mary in that old Catholic Church. O'Neill cleared his throat and murmured to Teal'c, "Any idea what the hell is going on around here?"

Teal'c gave him an imperturbable sideways glance. "We are accompanying Daniel Jackson to the temple of Onuris to assist in the relief of the wounded, O'Neill."

O'Neill gave him a very narrow look in return. "And that's your way of telling me – what? I shouldn't have physically laid hands on Daniel because that wasn't 'respectful' enough? Or I shouldn't have given into him and agreed to let him come back here? Which is it? Either? Both? Because I don't remember getting a lot of back-up down there from either you or Carter."

"Sir, I just don’t think that yelling at Daniel – "

"I was not 'yelling' at him, okay? I may have raised my voice a fraction, but I was definitely not yelling at him. And you two do know what going back to that temple could do to him, don't you?"

"Even so, O'Neill – "

O'Neill held up a finger. "Don't 'even so' me, Teal'c. Yes, in a perfect world, I would treat Daniel with consideration at all times, I would never lay an angry hand upon him, I would never raise my voice to him, but this isn't a perfect world, and this especially isn't a perfect planet, and I'm damned certain this isn't a perfect situation. Now, I'm sorry if I got a little short with him but I think saving his life and his sanity might be just a hair more important than hurting his feelings."

Carter said quietly, "Except you did hurt his feelings, sir, and we're still going to the temple."

"Okay – you spotted the flaw in my plan."

Looking around he wondered where the torches had come from. SG-1 had their flashlights and there was something comforting about those clean slices of bluish-white light, but the locals had gone for the fire-on-a-stick approach and looked like they were off on a witch- hunt.

He caught up with Daniel; the locals moving away from him as though he and they were aligned to the same magnetic pole, leaving a path clear to his teammate. O'Neill fell into step beside Daniel and risked a sideways glance at the younger man's face.

Oh boy, O'Neill thought . That was not a happy expression. That was Daniel's best pursed-mouth-narrowed-eyes screw-you-Jack look. At least O'Neill always thought of it as his screw-you-Jack look because he'd certainly never seen it directed at anyone else. Daniel might be slow to anger and near impossible to provoke to violence but when Daniel was cold-shouldering you, iceboxes felt warmer than his company. It had taken Daniel a while to work out that this was the best way to get to him but unfortunately over the last year or so they'd both learned that being frozen out by Daniel was definitely the thing he hated most. He'd found that out after he and Daniel had disagreed over the Harsesis child of Amaunet's when Daniel had struck him right off his conversation list and could always find a good reason to be leaving a room he was entering. Having your best friend suddenly decide that you were about as welcome in his life as a leper had not been a fun experience, and no way in hell was he going through that again.

"Daniel?"

Still the screw-you-Jack look. "Yes?" And that wasn't exactly the most inviting tone he'd ever heard either.

"I'm sorry."

Daniel darted him a wary glance, tone crisp, unforgiving: "For what?"

"Um – yelling at you, grabbing you, threatening to hit you, telling Teal'c to hit you, asking Carter to shoot you. Did I miss anything out?"

"Acting like a total maniac from the minute I woke up?"

That hurt. The circumstances were definitely mitigating and Daniel was so damned sure he was right. Suck it up, O'Neill, if you don't do it now you'll only have to do it later and he'll be even sulkier then. He sighed. "I'm sorry. I thought we'd lost you. I got scared."

Well that had certainly got rid of the screw-you-Jack look; now Daniel looked like he had in Netu when he'd first seen Carter's father half-dead in the corner, like the world was dissolving slowly around his ears. Daniel darted him another sideways glance, trying to read if he was sincere. He evidently decided he was because he looked even more upset. "I'm sorry too then. I didn't mean to scare you. I just…" Daniel bit his lip. "I didn’t know who you were back there, Jack."

"I was who I used to be."

"What?"

Great now he had Daniel upset and confused. "Daniel, you have to know I did a lot of stuff before I met you that I'm not very proud of."

"I don't think you'd ever – "

"Believe it." Sometimes you had to be brutal and this was definitely one of those times. "I did some things for the United States Government that would have bought me a one-way trip to Netu even without the Rescue Carter's Father Special Package Tour. That's who I was. That means in a way it's also who I am."

"I don't believe that."

O'Neill sighed. No, Daniel wouldn't. Teal'c might have done Bad Things in the past, but he was a good guy now, and Jack was a good guy now, and they were all good guys now. "Oh, Daniel…" he sighed. Most of the time he wanted the guy to keep his innocence, but every now and then, just like on the tel'tak, he just wanted him to wise up, open his eyes, and smell the goddamned manure. "You think you know me pretty well, don't you?"

Daniel looked at him curiously but answered with absolute confidence. "Yes."

"Well you're wrong. Sometimes, Daniel, you don't know me at all." He couldn't help some of his previous anger with Daniel returning. This was all Daniel's stupid fault. If he hadn't wandered off none of this would have happened. He would never have been captured, or tortured, those priests and worshippers would still be alive and uninjured. All because Daniel always knew best about everything. Well not this time. It was Daniel's fault he'd started thinking of himself as a good man again; he'd let himself believe in the image of himself reflected back at him in those curious blue eyes. Daniel could look at him with all that trust and belief until the sun turned black and shriveled in the sky, he wasn't going to convince him this time.

Daniel said conversationally, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

As O'Neill opened his mouth to tell him exactly what that meant, Teal'c said, "O'Neill, we are approaching the temple."

He tensed up at once. All those different gates to hell he'd never known about until now. Not just a fiery freefall to Netu in a Tok'ra sardine can. Not just the stab of pain as a Goa'uld ripped its way inside you and you knew you'd just drawn your last human breath; the gunshot that took your child's life echoing endlessly through your nightmares; memories of bodies burning, people screaming, blood pouring from wounds your bullets had made; but this: a place where they brought back the friend you'd failed to keep safe turned into something else entirely. A place where you'd left the guilty and the innocent to stew in their own blood.

"Jack? Are you okay?"

Stop asking me that, damnit, Daniel! O'Neill carefully didn't look at him. He could only get through this if he stayed mad at Daniel and it always got so much harder to stay mad at Daniel when Daniel was brimming over with compassion and concern for him. "It's nothing."

"Sir?" He turned to Carter with something like relief but her eyes were also full of anxiety. She nodded her head towards Daniel and murmured, "Do you think maybe we should…?"

"It's too late for that. We'll just have to hope that band-aid his subconscious stuck over Daniel's bad memories is still holding good." He tried to sound a lot more confident than he felt but given how unhappy Carter still looked after he'd finished speaking he guessed he hadn't been too successful. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay. They'd fix these people up, she and Teal'c would dismantle the gizmo on the DHD, they'd all get the hell out of here and Daniel wouldn't suspect or remember a thing. But he couldn't. He had a very bad feeling about all of this and it was getting worse.

***

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