The Quality of Mercy

Part 2

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.

Part Two

The dust was still settling in the temple. If it hadn't been night and the sun could have found its way inside, there would have been thousands of motes dancing in those light-beams. As it was, they had to view the ruins by pitiless blue-white flashlight beams and the yellow-red flames of burning torches.

"Oh my God…" Daniel breathed it softly, looking around at the broken stones, the dead, the groaning wounded still trapped underneath the rubble, the blood.

Daniel turned to look over his shoulder at O'Neill, and he knew what Daniel needed to see: reassurance that they hadn't done this; that they were as appalled as he was; that the man who had been his friend for the past three years would come back from wherever he'd been hiding and act like himself again.

O'Neill made an instant decision about the way he was going to have to play this. They were here, after all. Daniel had walked into the temple and the bad memories didn't seem to have hit him. The best way to freak him out and start him remembering was probably to go on acting as weird as he had been for the past couple of hours. Time to give Daniel back the Jack O'Neill he knew. Time to give Daniel something to do to take his mind off things as well.

Closing his hand on Daniel's sleeve, he eased him a few paces into the temple and out of the way of the crowd that had spilled in around them. "We have limited medical supplies and multiple casualties. So we need to assess the injured and make decisions about who needs it the most. If we could use the 'gate we could send back for Doc Fraiser and a medical team, but we can't, so we're going to have to do the best we can with what we've got. Why don't you try to find out if these people have some kind of Healer of their own and then you can liaise with him or her while Carter and the rest of us do what we can, okay?"

Daniel was so obviously grateful to have him back it made him feel even worse. O'Neill saw that look of relief light up his face and quickly reached across and patted Daniel on the shoulder. "You going to be okay?"

Daniel nodded, clearly making an effort but hanging in there. "Yes."

"Do they have a word for doctor or something?"

"Sewnew or Sewenwet," Daniel answered him automatically. "But the vowel sounds are different here."

"Well you start yelling as close as you can get to it while Teal'c and I see what we can do about shifting some of the smaller stones. Then get Carter to help you set up some kind of pulley system for moving the bigger ones." He tightened his grip on Daniel's arm, giving it a little squeeze to be sure he had his attention. "Okay, Daniel?"

"Yes." Daniel looked better already just at being given something specific to concentrate on. He turned away and started speaking rapidly in Abydonian, making a lot of hand gestures to help with the explanation

As he nodded to Teal'c and the two of them went to start lifting stones from the injured, O'Neill was also aware of Daniel trying to get things organized. He was surprisingly good at it, and O'Neill remembered again that Daniel hadn't actually been the college kid he'd appeared on their first meeting but a proper grown-up archaeologist who had spent years in the field. He always thought of archaeology as careful digging with little implements and brushes, but he guessed that every now and then archaeology also involved hauling great big rocks around because Daniel was issuing orders about where to place the ropes, and how to pad the ropes and how to use that ceiling support as a pulley with surprising efficiency.

The no-longer-wailing worshippers were obeying Daniel unquestioningly, working together to lift shattered blocks of stone from the dead and injured; Daniel calling soft words of encouragement to them before hurrying to assess the wounded. Seeing the torchlight gild his hair, the gentle fingers feeling so carefully across bloodstained bodies to check for signs of life, it didn't seem so insane to O'Neill that these people were perceiving his teammate as some kind of deliverer.

Carter was helping him, her short blond hair burnished to red-gold by torchlight. Even though she couldn't speak the language, her clear voice was soothing both wounded and mourners. As he watched, she turned to assist with the placing of the ropes then turned back to see to those the concerted heaving had freed from the broken slabs, compassion and competence written in every line of her body.

As O'Neill and Teal'c put their hands on a broken lump of statue, other hands tentatively came to assist them. O'Neill deliberately didn't look at the people to his right and left, just saying quietly, "Teal'c tell them one-two-three or something, will you?"

Teal'c said something O'Neill didn't understand but then at a nod to him from Teal'c they were all lifting together, grunting with exertion as they moved the broken slab from off the body it was covering. O'Neill looked down and made a face. "Jeez…" The skull had been crushed but at least this one must have died outright. A priest going by the clothing and the hairless head and skin. He was glad Daniel hadn't seen this one. He'd learned to be stoic about having to shoot serpent guards, but he still flinched from the sight of corpses when they took him unawares. And anyway, O'Neill always kept in mind the fact that Daniel was a civilian. There were some things he thought civilians shouldn't have to get used to even when they were part of a military field unit. Still not making eye contact with their nervous assistants, he murmured to Teal'c, "Tell them to find somewhere to put the dead ones. Out of sight of the wounded."

As Teal'c passed on his orders, O'Neill turned away, wiping his hands on his jacket and trying not to think about that corpse they'd just uncovered.

"Jack?"

He went before he'd thought about whether or not he wanted to. This was one of his conditioned responses now. Like the one you developed when your child was crying or having nightmares, that had you propelled out of bed and stumbling into his bedroom to comfort him before you even realized you were awake. This one seemed to be almost as deeply ingrained: Daniel called his name and he started running. Well, walking briskly if anyone was watching. But he could no more have ignored that call than stopped his heart beating just by wanting it. He would have gone if Carter or Teal'c had called him, as well, of course, but perhaps not instinctively. There would have been some rationale in that response, a moment when his brain identified the call and the likely reason for it before he started responding even if it took less than a second for him to do so. But Daniel saying his name was apparently wired straight into his feet. Somedays it was like being on a goddamned invisible string.

Daniel was crouched at the base of a block of the broken statue of Onuris. There was a bloodstained hand visible where a puddle of torchlight fell. O'Neill tensed his jaw. Daniel shouldn't be looking at bits of bodies. Why the hell was he looking at bits of bodies anyway? A low moan gusted out from the shadow of the statue. Oh hell. Not dead. A crushed body with some breath left in it. Daniel said softly, "He's still alive. Do we have any morphine?"

The word was like a lightning bolt and O'Neill felt himself flinch. "Morphine?"

Daniel looked up at him and swallowed. "Something to stop the pain once we get this off him, Jack. His chest has been crushed. He must be in a lot of pain." He tried to say it matter-of-factly but O'Neill saw that haunted look come into Daniel's eyes which he'd seen way too much of on Netu, not to mention every battlefield he'd been forced to take him to. It was no surprise when as Daniel straightened up he wrapped his arms around his chest protectively.

It was the High Priest, O'Neill realized. He'd seen that section of the statue fall onto him. He'd assumed he'd been killed outright, but instead he'd been lying here all this time, probably in the kind of pain he didn't even want to think about. He tried to summon back some of that anger, to remind himself this was the guy who'd tortured Daniel…He could kindle a brief spark of that all-consuming fury, but it was doused immediately by the look in Daniel's eyes.

Daniel gestured at the groaning High Priest. "Will you and Teal'c help me to get this off him?"

Before O'Neill could answer, the worshippers were clustering around Daniel, tugging at him and shaking their heads as they gestured at the injured man while repeating the same words over and over.

Frowning Daniel said, "Hum-nadjar-tepi? I don't…?" His face cleared. "Hem-netjer-tepey? Servant-god-first. God's-servant first? Oh, right, god's First Servant – you mean he's the High Priest, yes? Of this temple?" He frowned again as they tried to pull him away, shaking their heads and making signs that even O'Neill could see spoke of danger, caution, flight.

Daniel dug in his toes, saying in the same even tone, "No, we must help this man…"

He was all but overwhelmed by a chorus of rapid chattering and head shaking, hands determinedly trying to pull him away.

O'Neill turned to Teal'c for assistance. "If they don't shut up…"

Teal'c strode forward, snapping out the word imperiously: "Ger!"

Silence fell at once. The Jaffa beckoned to one of those who had been the most insistent about Daniel not going near the priest while O'Neill smoothly intercepted Daniel as he went to join the discussion, saying, "Any word on that doctor? The kind of injuries that High Priest guy has we're not going to be able to treat."

His gaze straying to where Teal'c was questioning the local man, Daniel collected himself. "Um – apparently their physician was killed when the…ceiling collapsed but some of them have a little medical knowledge and they're helping with the wounded. Look, Jack, I don't really understand what happened here?"

"Daniel there's no time for explanations right now. You see about getting that pulley you've got rigged up moved to that chunk of statue and I'll check our packs, see what medical supplies we've got left. Did you have a field kit with you?"

"Yes, but I've already used most of it up. We need morphine."

"Well we'll do the best we can with what we've got." Seeing that Teal'c was about to come back over, O'Neill sent Daniel away with a reassuring little pat on the shoulder. "Go start on moving that pulley will you?"

"Colonel?"

He turned around to see Carter waiting to speak to him. She was also wiping her hands on her jacket.

"What's the situation, Major?"

She bit her lip. "A lot of dead and wounded, sir."

"Yeah, I got that."

"What were those people saying to Daniel?"

Teal'c heard the last question and replied gravely, "They say the High Priest of this temple does not believe in the Chosen One. He is a faithful follower of Onuris. He would betray Daniel Jackson to the Goa'uld as a false deliverer. They say Onuris is coming."

"What?" O'Neill whipped his head around to check the Jaffa wasn't just making a bad joke. "How? Why? He can't know what happened here. Can he?"

"They say he does. They say he is coming. They also say Daniel Jackson is in grave danger as long as he remains here."

O'Neill took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh – peachy."

Carter shook her head. "Teal'c that doesn't make any sense. It must just be a superstition on these people's part."

"So I at first believed, Major Carter, but they are adamant that Onuris is coming here. That the Stargate is closed because he is coming here."

She looked around the temple as though seeking inspiration. "Well then there must be some kind of communication device one of the priests used to talk to him. Perhaps we could adapt it and get word through to General Hammond. Tell him to send through a naqadah reactor so we can dial up the gate manually."

Teal'c shook his head. "They say it is written on the Tablet of the Prophet that when Onuris is betrayed by his own, he will come to seek revenge upon the Chosen One who has attempted to usurp him. They tell it as though it is a story they already know."

"We have got to get Daniel off this damned planet," O'Neill said through his teeth.

Carter had a hand up to her forehead. "Sir, the only way we're going to be able to do that is if we understand the technology we're dealing with here. Now, someone or something must have contacted Onuris and told him about Daniel or else he wouldn't be coming. And they must have told him very quickly because by the time we got down from the temple the DHD was already locked out."

"Well there's your communicator, right there," O'Neill shrugged. "You said you thought it was transmitting. It's obviously transmitting to Onuris, telling him to come deal with his rival before people stop believing in him and start believing in this…Chosen One instead."

"Believing in Daniel," Carter said quietly.

O'Neill sighed and looked across at where Daniel was motioning to the men setting up the pulley system to take up the slack. "Well they could do a lot worse."

Carter wiped her hand across her forehead, leaving a trail of blood as she did so. "It still doesn't make any sense. What told the device on the DHD to start transmitting? Why are these people all acting like today's events were something they already knew about? As though Daniel was someone they've been waiting for?"

"I don't know, Major."

She gave him a level look. "Well I think we need to find out, sir. And quickly."

"Jack?"

There was that damned string again because he was ten feet across the temple before he knew it. "You okay?"

Daniel looked up from his position kneeling on the floor by the trapped High Priest to gaze at him curiously. "Why do you keep asking me that?"

O'Neill grimaced at his own stupidity. "You had a headache."

He knew it sounded lame and Daniel clearly agreed with him because he looked around at the groaning wounded with their crushed limbs before darting O'Neill another quizzical glance, opened his mouth, closed it again, then turned his attention back to the High Priest. "Jack, I don't think he's going to last much longer if we don't get this weight off his chest. And I can't get them to get the pulley hooked up over here. I don't understand why not. They just keep shaking their heads at me."

He appreciated the way Daniel had heroically resisted telling him he ought to get a sense of proportion there. He guessed he wasn't the only one who had to keep swallowing the snide remarks. O'Neill waved an arm at Teal'c. "You want to tell these people to get the pulley moved over here?"

As Teal'c began issuing a series of orders in a sharp bark of unfamiliar Goa'uld, O'Neill became aware of Daniel murmuring quietly to the injured man. The same way he had spoken so gently to Apophis' host when that bewildered scribe was dying in their infirmary. He had the man's bloodstained hand held in his and was speaking very softly in a tongue unrecognizable from those staccato commands of Teal'c's despite the fact that O'Neill knew this was more or less the same language.

Looking over his shoulder, O'Neill saw that Daniel's 'followers' were protesting to Teal'c, pointing at the High Priest and shaking their heads. He could guess what they were saying. They had his sympathy. But there was no way in hell he was going to look Daniel in the eye again and tell him they were just going to sit this one out and let a man die. As Teal'c looked across at him questioningly, O'Neill said flatly, "Just tell them to do it. Now."

The High Priest groaned again and his hand tightened on Daniel's. He was saying something over and over. O'Neill looked at Daniel. "You getting any of that?"

"Some of it. He's saying he is a faithful servant of the one true god. That he has always served the Great Lord Onuris and always shall. That others will give succor to the false deliverer but he shall receive no mercy from his hands."

O'Neill gritted his teeth. "Sounds like a nice guy."

Daniel gave him a reproachful look. "Teal'c used to believe Apophis was a god, Jack. That doesn't mean he wasn't a good man at heart. And you told me you did some bad things when you were in Special Forces, right?"

"Right."

"Well I do what you tell me. Does that make me culpable in what you might have done in the past?"

O'Neill regarded him levelly. "When, Daniel?"

"What?"

"When do you do what I tell you? Name me one instance – ever – where you have done what I tell you."

Daniel sighed at him impatiently and bent back over the injured priest, murmuring soft words of encouragement to him. The man began to struggle back to consciousness, eyelids flickering before he began to cough. O'Neill winced as the dark blood spattered over Daniel's hands. He jerked his head round and yelled, "Teal'c, I don't care what you have to tell them, just make them hook up the goddamned pulley!"

There was a confusion of activity, in the midst of which ropes were lashed and secured under Teal'c's direction. Then O'Neill was tugged away from the scene by the worshippers who, clearly emboldened by his concern for Daniel began to gesticulate and talk at him. As Teal'c and Carter gave out orders to the unwilling rescuers of the injured High Priest, O'Neill was pulled even further away from the fallen statue by the most insistent of them, a dozen protestors clearly telling him that the High Priest should not be saved for Daniel's sake. O'Neill held up his hands. "Look, I'm with you. I don't like the guy either. But you tell me a way to explain that to Daniel which doesn't involve reminding him of what happened here earlier."

"Jack?"

O'Neill practically leapt out of his skin as Daniel spoke right next to him. He wheeled around. "Christ, Daniel, stop creeping up on me like that!"

Daniel looked at him blankly. "Jack, you don't understand a word these people are saying to you and they don't understand a word you're saying to them. I was just offering to translate."

Before O'Neill could ask just how much Daniel had heard, more of the worshippers came forward, shouting and gesticulating and dragging with them two very frightened priests. Abruptly, O'Neill was back in that alcove, looking across the temple at the men who were pulling Daniel along between them; his teammate's skin grey with pain, eyes dulled, mind gone. His jaw tightened and he automatically raised his MP-5. Daniel had already gone forward and was asking what was wrong while the men holding the priests spoke to him rapidly.

O'Neill wasn't at all sure that he wanted Daniel to hear any of this, and hastened to interrupt, "What are they saying?"

Daniel gesticulated at him to be quiet and turned and spoke to the others rapidly in Abydonian. O'Neill thought again how soft and beguiling a language it sounded in Daniel's mouth, how harsh in that of the Goa'uld. When Daniel turned back to him he looked more bewildered than traumatized. "I don't think I'm getting what they're telling me. They keep saying these are bad priests who worship the False god and did harm to the Chosen One. And then there's a lot about that 'shokmar' word I still don't understand." He spoke sharply to the worshippers, before turning to the priests and murmuring something reassuring. He put his hand on O'Neill's chest as he did so and then nodded over at Teal'c and Carter before saying something else.

"What was that about?" O'Neill demanded.

"I told them they mustn't harm those men and I told the priests that we would let no harm come to them. I told them my companions were strong warriors who would protect them from unjust wrath."

"What about just wrath?"

"What?"

And there was Daniel with that dazed look on his face again. O'Neill said impatiently, "Damnit, Daniel, we have no idea what these people might have done. They could have been sacrificing everyone's first-born sons to the goddamned Goa'uld for all we know. Don't go signing me up to protect people I don't know."

"They're scared, Jack."

"Well maybe they have reason to be scared. Did you ever stop and think about that? Maybe they've done really bad things and don't deserve to be protected?"

At a concerted grunt of exertion from the men manning the pulley, Daniel turned to go back to the injured High Priest, but O'Neill caught his arm and held it. "Just wait a minute."

"Why?"

O'Neill wondered how, after all the shit he'd been through, Daniel could still look as confused and trusting as a ten year-old. He didn't know any more if he found it endearing or just downright exasperating; but it did always make him want to keep the younger man safe. He met Daniel's blue gaze with a level stare of his own. "Your family has a bad track record with big stones and pulleys. Just wait over there until they've put the damn thing down again."

Daniel gave him another of those hurt looks and O'Neill sighed, giving him a very gentle push as he did so. "Daniel – just do it for me, will you?"

Jack's propulsion sent Daniel toward the center of the temple and he kept going, walking between the rows of wounded, gazing up at the walls and feeling something stirring on the edges of his memory; a vague sense of déjà vu.  He tried to imagine what it would have been like when the statue was still intact. It would have dominated the chamber, the plumed headdress a pillar that held up the ceiling…and suddenly he could see it rear up so vividly that he flinched. Anhur. Onuris. Inhert. The statue was looming over him, flanked by two stone lions, carrying a spear…Daniel found he was gazing at a space where a statue wasn't, the ceiling billowing above him, the dusty air lapping around him like a cold sea in which he could very easily drown.

He remembered the people clutching at him in the shadow of the Stargate, crying that the 'tewet' had brought down the 'tewet' as though he should understand what they were telling him. Each word given a completely different inflection and stress as though it was another word altogether; like someone saying 'a jar' and 'ajar' in the same sentence. Abruptly a possible translation for 'tewet' came to him: "Statue."

There had been no statues on Abydos, of course, which was why the word was buried so much deeper than those he'd used every day. His vocabulary had a lot of gaps still even though he and Teal'c had been trading lessons since the Jaffa first joined their struggle against the Goa'uld: Daniel helping Teal'c to speak and write better English while Teal'c helped him to expand his vocabulary. Later they had both become advanced students: Teal'c teaching him different variants of Goa'uld while he explained the etymology of the English language to Teal'c. But his core vocabulary, those words he had spoken every day on Abydos remained much more easily accessible than the ones he had been taught later but rarely had a chance to use. He could remember swearwords Skaara had taught him after they'd tried out their unspeakable first attempt at moonshine better than many far more useful terms Teal'c had told him.

Abydonian bad language. A gust of memory, warm and welcome as the first cool gust of evening after a baking desert day. Daniel and Skaara giggling drunkenly at the way the stars were spinning as they lay out flat on top of a cold sand dune and passed their horrible homemade brew from hand to hand. Skaara teaching him the words, and Daniel repeating them, shouting them defiantly at the constellations and the lingering vapor trail that might be tiny specks of atomized Ra.

The next day, vision blurring from a hangover that felt as if it had poisoned every brain cell, he'd cut his finger chopping vegetables, tried out one of his new swearwords for size, and heard a gasp from the doorway. He'd turned to see Sha're staring at him in indignant disbelief. He'd given her a wincing apology for a smile then flinched as she advanced determinedly. The slap had been across his rump rather than the back of his head. Had he been her little brother instead of her husband he probably would have had his ear twisted in reproof, but he'd pleaded his hangover and begged for mercy. She'd had to struggle to force her face into an expression of sternness, her mouth twitching as she pointed to the floor. He'd fallen to his knees at her feet and held his hands together in a mock plea for absolution. She'd lifted her chin and tried to look implacable but when he'd bent and kissed her feet, he'd felt the giggles tremor through her. He'd kissed a trail to her ankles and then began to kiss the inside of her leg, up to her knee, along the satin warmth of her thigh…

Daniel put a hand up to his head and swallowed hard. What was the point in remembering any of that now? He'd knelt at Amaunet's feet since then, seen the cool satisfaction in her eyes as she aimed the ribbon device to cause him the maximum pain. Seen Amaunet die. Seen Sha're die. Hope die. You had to go forward. Just like Jack. One life ended, another began. This was his life now. He was part of SG-1, a member of a team, despite having no military qualifications, allowed to explore new worlds. Allowed even, through Jack's goodwill, to travel the universe in search of Sha're's son…

There was another unlooked for spasm of memory: that newborn baby kicking in his arms. A perfect human boy the Goa'uld would nevertheless hunt down and kill because of his race memory, and whom the SGC were happy for him to search out for the same reason. He'd been careful not to ask the other three what they were looking for just in case they told him it was a weapon against the Goa'uld. As long as they let him look with them he didn't care why. Just as long as no one minded that while they were searching for the Harsesis whose knowledge might help them defeat the Goa'uld, he was only trying to find his dead wife's child.

You must find the boy…

"I'm looking, Sha're, but he isn't here."

As Daniel walked towards the place where he'd imagined the statue soaring implacably, he saw the plinth and what remained of the stone lions. That was when he heard what sounded like the echo of his own voice in his mind: 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...

Just knowledge. Nothing to flinch from there. Nothing to make him feel that someone was walking over his grave. He averted his eyes from the headless lion statue, stumbled over a broken piece of stone and put out an arm to prevent himself from falling. When he grabbed hold of a pillar, he felt the inscription under his fingers. This time as he blinked and focused, the sense of doom was stronger, each word making a sound in his mind like ice water dripping slowly onto a tin plate: " ' May I be granted power over the waters, for I am he who crosses the sky, I am the Lion, I am the Slayer.'

"I know this." Daniel backed up, swallowing. "I've seen this before." He turned a slow circle, telling himself not to be stupid, of course he knew it, the inscription had been edited down from a longer one in the Book of the Dead. But why then did he think he'd said it here; exactly here; his voice striking the exact same note from these soaring stone pillars. Knew the nine bows were inscribed on those broken pieces of pottery, red clay jars, and human skulls he'd barely looked at yet? Because they're execration texts. You know what execration texts are. You're an Egyptologist. Get a grip, Daniel!

Pain lanced through his head so fast and so sharp he cried out before he could stop himself. Blue light flared. A voice snarled: " Wesheb! Wesheb!"

"Daniel…?"

The pain hit him again, a wave this time, engulfing, paralyzing, he crumpled and would have fallen to his knees except someone grabbed him and held him up. For a moment he felt like a kite tossed on a storm; the pain dragging him up into another gust while a thin string held him fastened to the earth.

"Daniel…? It's Jack. Talk to me. Daniel!"

He gasped and clutched, feeling material under his fingers; a jacket, a t-shirt; an arm went around his back, hauled him upright. "Daniel, answer me. Answer me!"

Wesheb! Wesheb!

"I don't know the answer!" He shouted it, eyes watering with the pain. "I don't know the answer!" The string snapped; he was thrown up into the darkness; swallowed by the storm.

***

It was too easy to play this part once more. Surveying the frightened people scuttling to do his will, Teal'c again experienced the power reflected upon a Jaffa because of these deluded slaves' belief the parasite he served was a god. As a Jaffa you were encouraged to see ordinary humans as cattle, and when he had fired upon the statue of Onuris, these people had meant nothing to him. His rage had been all-consuming. Because of Daniel Jackson? Because he had once again failed to keep his friend safe? Because he had been forced to murder Sha're to also murder Amaunet? Or was it a deeper rage still burning, because he too had once believed? Was his hatred for Apophis due to the evil that Goa'uld had done or because as Apophis' first prime, in his combined desire to avenge his father, and his conviction that Apophis truly was a god, Teal'c had helped him to commit some of that evil?

Like O'Neill, there were times when Teal'c did not know if he was a good man who had been forced by circumstances to do bad things; or a bad man who had fallen into good company. Sometimes he felt the restraints that kept him from cruelty were not strong enough to hold fast if temptation raised its head. Even as he rejoiced in the death of Apophis, a part of him felt cheated because the false god he had served for so many years had not been killed by his hand, while Apophis' death, if it had taken place when Netu exploded, would have been far quicker than he deserved. In the same way, had the Tok'ra sent word that Cronos had been slain in battle, he would have felt more regret than jubilation. He wanted to be the one to fire the fatal shot, to watch the light fade from those glowing eyes; to see that arrogance freeze into a death mask of disbelief.

He could hear the whispers from the people he was ordering to help their comrades. Some saw them as delivers, others, faithful to Onuris, saw them as evil acolytes of a false god. But all obeyed his commands because of the emblem on his forehead and the staff weapon in his hand. This was the blind conformity upon which the Goa'uld depended. How could he hope to wean his fellow Jaffa from a system which invested them with so much power? Which raised them above ordinary men, gave them the ability to heal from wounds which would have killed anyone else, made them the mouthpiece of a living god? Gave them beautiful wives, healthy children, and homes which set them apart from other, apparently lesser, men? How could he persuade Jaffa so enriched by their subordination to the Goa'uld that they were in truth only slaves?

"Teal'c?"

He turned to find Major Carter at his elbow. He saw the distress in her blue eyes although she was attempting to conceal it. He wondered if she blamed him for this. If she felt he should have retrieved Daniel Jackson by some other method. If she knew that at the time he had fired his staff weapon into the statue of Onuris, it was not that he had not known it held up the roof of the temple, but that he had not cared. As he bent his head to talk to her, he realized that behind the lingering traces of her own shampoo and soap scent, she now also smelt faintly of other men's blood.

"Major Carter?"

"Teal'c, I can't understand what this woman is saying to me, but I think she might have a child trapped under the rubble. She definitely said 'sa'. That's 'son' isn't it?"

He nodded. "Indeed." The word 'son' chilled and warmed him at the same time. He could lose Ry'ac in the time it took a staff weapon to flare and fire. Could lose Ry'ac in the eyeblink it had taken O'Neill to lose his son. Or he could be one of the lucky ones who lived to see his son grow up to manhood. Live to see the flesh of his flesh bring down the false gods who had enslaved his people. Fate had decided to make Daniel Jackson a widower, and Teal'c an instrument in its hands. Whether it decided to make Teal'c a proud father or a desolate one too often now seemed to be something over which he had no control.

The woman was sitting in one of the alcoves, her blonde hair a shock after so many dark heads. She was rocking herself quietly, a cut down one cheekbone weeping tiny rubies of blood. Major Carter poured water onto a cloth and very gently bathed the woman's face, while pointing at him with her other hand. "Can you tell my friend what you told me?"

The woman lifted her head to gaze at Teal'c, and her eyes widened in mingled recognition and alarm. As he crouched down in front of her to try to lessen her fear, the words tumbled from her, the inflection strange and the grammar different from the constructions he was used to, but he could understand the sense:

"… hi…khepet…sa…sheshepen…hem-netjer… Khas'ru…shenu…"

There was much more. How her husband had fought the priests who had made their decree, and how they had killed him before her eyes…How she no longer cared if she lived or died. Let the temple fall. Let the wrath of any god and his avatars descend upon her because without her child she was ash…

"Teal'c?"

He collected himself with an effort. "A sickness came here and many died. The priests blamed those who had not shown true faith, and decreed that an offering must be made to Onuris to appease his wrath. Her son was taken by the priests because of the color of his hair. It was ordained that he should be made one of the 'Khas'ru', the Banished Ones. He was sent from here through the rings of eternity. She says that without her husband and her son she has no reason to live. She wishes to wait here for Onuris' wrath to fall upon her so she can find the peace of death."

They exchanged a long glance and then Major Carter visibly gave herself a mental shake. Her voice was brisk, trying and failing to conceal the compassion underneath it. "Then her son isn't here and there's nothing we can do to help her. We'd better get back to the others and see if we can get that pulley working properly."

As Teal'c rose to his feet, the woman reached out and caught at his sleeve. There was the look in her eyes of one pleading for absolution. Once again the words spilled from her. He heard her out in silence and then placed his hand upon her head and smiled at her gently, telling her that it was not her fault, whatever the priests had told her. The sickness had not come from her child. Nor had Teal'c and his friends come here because of her son's banishment. Her son was not the herald of disaster the priests had spoken of. When Teal'c finished, she caught his hand and kissed at it. He felt like a hypocrite as he turned away.

Major Carter touched his arm. "What was that about?"

"Apparently it is written that the Death Child is the harbinger of all sorrows on this world. That he brings the Deliverer but he also brings destruction. I told her that Daniel Jackson was not the Deliverer and her son was therefore not the Death Child."

"Good." Major Carter nodded in relief. "She's had enough misery to contend with, poor woman."

Teal'c looked around the temple again, at the broken statue and the groaning wounded. "Except, I am almost certain that I lied."

Next to him Major Carter grimaced and he knew that she was also seeing the patterns here. The things that did not make sense. The evidence that was leading them both to an inescapable conclusion which neither one of them was yet quite ready to address. Her voice was husky with the dust in her throat. "Either way, I'm glad you did, Teal'c."

***

Daniel came around to find himself sitting huddled on the floor of the temple being rocked in someone's arms. Not his mother. Not Sha're. But someone who made him feel as safe as they had done. Someone whose right hand was resting on the back of his head, gently stroking his hair. He surfaced slowly to the sound of words he could follow like a beacon: "It's okay, Daniel…You're okay…It was just a bad dream…"

Jack. It was okay. He was with Jack. And Sam and Teal'c were probably nearby. He wasn't alone. He began to have an awareness of himself and his surroundings. The fingers of his right hand were clenched tight in the man's jacket; his left hand clutching at his t-shirt; the left side of his face was pressed against Jack's chest; tears had left stinging salt trails down his skin. He gasped with the shock of his return to full consciousness, feeling as if someone had been holding his head under water while he slept.

"Daniel?"

He raised his head and looked up at the so-familiar face. Idly he noticed the stubble on Jack's jaw. Jack could really do with a shave. That scar from where the Touched had tried to crack his skull open had never really faded. It bisected his left eyebrow, a thin white line. Jack must have come damned close to losing an eye back then…Jack looked scared. Jack never looked scared. Why the hell did Jack look so scared?

There was a hand cupping the side of his face. "Daniel? Do you know who I am?"

He swallowed hard. "What just happened?"

"Tell me your name?"

"Damn it, Jack, stop stalling. What happened?"

Great, now Jack looked relieved and he was scared, because none of this was making any sense.

"You had a blackout. Must have been from that crack on the head you had earlier. Concussion's like that sometimes."

"A blackout?" Daniel slowly opened his right hand, unclenching it from Jack's jacket. His fingertips were white, he'd been hanging on so tightly, and those creases looked like they were never coming out. "So why was I clinging onto you as if you were a cliff face and this floor was a – a big drop?"

"You were dizzy."

"Why were you holding me?" Daniel stared at him in confusion.

He saw Jack's gaze flicker, evade him before coming back to focus. A shrug. "You were dizzy."

"I've been dizzy before, Jack. You helped me lie down and put me in the recovery position. You didn't rock me in your arms like I was five years old and frightened of the dark."

"You were confused, Daniel."

"I was more than…confused." And then he remembered that other memory. Clinging to Jack like a terrified child, listening to Jack's heartbeat while he whimpered with fear. "It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"What?"

Daniel stumbled unsteadily to his feet and Jack was there in an instant, offering him a hand. Daniel pulled away impatiently. "Something happened earlier. Something you're not telling me. I've been here before. I remember being here. Something happened." He frowned, putting a hand up to his aching head. "Something that scared me or hurt me so much I was…"

Again, there was that 'dream' image of himself being rocked in Jack's arms, soothed, comforted, told to go to sleep, because everything was okay and he was safe now. He met those brown eyes, reading in Jack's anxious expression how Jack was willing him not to remember. Didn't want him to have access to something, which, damnit, was part of his life. He saw at once there was no point in asking Jack what had happened because the man would never tell him, and he felt both hurt and betrayed. "You lied to me…" He couldn't conceal the surprise in his tone. He hadn't realized he was waiting for Jack to deny it – needing Jack to deny it – until he saw him wince. Daniel stared at him in disbelief. "You lied to me?"

"Calm down, Daniel."

A shout of mingled exertion and triumph, made them both turn their heads. The cry of pain that followed it reminded Daniel what was happening and he collected himself. "The High Priest." He could hardly bring himself to look at Jack, the sting of being misled, deliberately denied access to his own recent past, was too fresh and too painful. Determinedly looking six inches past Jack's ear, he held out a hand. "Morphine?"

"We don't have any."

Even that sounded like a lie to him. Without another word, he turned and walked towards the crowd clustered around their injured High Priest.

The High Priest was conscious and already waving a hand weakly, calling down imprecations against false deliverers, warning against the wrath of the One True God, the vengeance which would be visited upon the heads of those who denied His divinity. Daniel had thought his chest and lungs were crushed beyond repair but the fact the man could speak suggested there might be a faint hope for him.

Attempting to put those fragments of memory out of his mind, Daniel crouched by the injured man and tried to soothe him. But he winced as he saw his injuries. He didn't know how the High Priest could speak when his chest was crushed like that but there was clearly no hope for him. Just for a second he wondered if this was how he'd looked on P3R-636 after those rocks had fallen on him, if Jack been forced to see him like this…He gave his head a shake, not a line of thought he wanted to pursue right now, he was mad as hell with Jack and this time he was staying that way.

Daniel focused on the dying man lying by his knees. He wondered if he was going to have to say last rites for him and if the ones he knew would be appropriate for someone whose ancestors had been separated from Ancient Egypt for so many generations. The rituals would have evolved, altered…Then Daniel remembered those other two priests with relief: they would know the proper words to send their High Priest on his last journey. He looked up at the crowd around the injured man, seeking out the priests, wanting to ask them what rites would be appropriate, if there were any words that should be said now while the man was conscious so that his soul would be lightened on its journey. Both of them were staring between him and the High Priest and the expressions on their faces made no sense to him, mingled guilt and fear and disbelief. As he opened his mouth to ask them about their rituals, he saw their faces again, a blurry past image overlaying the present; these same men looming over him, chaining his wrists and ankles to a stone table while he struggled vainly to free himself, telling him that his blasphemy would be punished, his claim tested, that he would be made to answer the questions they asked in the name of Onuris, the one, the true, the only god…

Daniel shuddered and Sam started forward at once. "Daniel, are you all right?"

"Daniel Jackson? Is something wrong?"

Looking at the stone floor, at the blood trail trickling from the High Priest, Daniel ignored them to say, "He looks bad to me. The other priests should give him whatever he needs to make his peace with – Onuris." He put a hand to his head as the pain lanced through it again. Blue light. Pitiless. His own voice screaming. These faces unmoved by his suffering…

"Daniel…?"

"Keep away from me, Jack." He determinedly didn't look at him, not wanting Jack to see the hurt on his face or the betrayal he felt.

The High Priest's eyelids fluttered and the man turned his head. His and Daniel's eyes met and then the High Priest's widened in horror. " A'akhu! Baiu mitu!"

"What's that?" Jack demanded.

Daniel was still wincing from the hate in the High Priest's eyes. "He said I was a…damned soul."

The dying man raised a bloody hand and pointed an accusing finger at Daniel. When the man began to berate him, Daniel wished he didn't understand him, but the man's failing lungs and fading strength didn't dim the force of every savage word: You! You are the cause of this! You are the one they speak of! You are the one who brings doom upon us! You are the False Deliverer! Hear this well, for Shokmar shall yet prevail."

"Khen'ra!" Teal'c hissed it through his teeth.

"Let him speak if he wants to," Daniel swallowed hard.

"… There is but one god and he is Onuris. Even now he comes to avenge the true worshippers and punish all unbelievers. Even now he journeys here to destroy you. All suffering shall be yours. Death shall be yours. There will be no mercy shown you or those who follow you…"

Daniel turned his head away, the hate in the dying man's eyes still having the power to sear him, to look at the Jaffa. "Am I the cause of this?"

"No!" It was Jack who answered but Teal'c's silence told him more than the Jack's swift reply. When he looked at Sam she wouldn't meet his gaze.

Daniel turned to face Jack, wishing he could sound as cold and clear as he wanted to, wishing he didn't feel so damned close to crying right now. "Why should I believe you?"

"Daniel, these people…"

"These people are dead and dying because of me, aren't they? They – hurt me and you destroyed their temple in payment. While they were still in it. And then you – left them…?" Even now he couldn't quite believe it, couldn't help giving Jack a look that begged him not to make it true.

The High Priest was still calling down the wrath of Onuris upon him. Praying to the one god to destroy all False Deliverers, to make the blasphemer suffer, as he deserved to suffer…

Teal'c was translating for Jack and Sam. Sam was trying to catch his eye now, to tell him it wasn't as bad as it seemed, there had been mitigating…He didn't want to know. He couldn't look at them. He couldn't trust them. How could they have done this?

Daniel saw Jack shoot the two priests a venomous look, saying shortly, "You want to get your pal here to shut up before I decide to put him out of his misery with a bullet?"

Daniel got up and walked away, stumbling on the rubble, not even seeing where he was going. He could feel something terrible waiting in his memory, a dam about to crack. Jolinar's torture had been sitting in the back of Sam's mind all that time like a landmine no one had stepped on yet and none of them had ever realized it. He remembered jolting back to consciousness on the tel'tak to the sound of her screaming, "Shut it off! Shut it off !"

"Daniel?"

He pulled away from the man's hand impatiently. "Leave me alone."

"Damnit, Daniel!" Jack grabbed him by the shoulders, swung him around and made him face him.

He couldn't help flinching, nerves frayed, still having to fight to stop his eyes from watering with the shock of those memories. He hunched up his shoulders, trying to protect himself from Jack's gaze, not the anger, he didn't care if Jack was angry, he hoped he was, he hoped he yelled so damned loudly the rest of the ceiling fell down, and he could yell right back, but he couldn't deal with his compassion right now. But there was the look in those brown eyes he'd been dreading, the one that told him Jack was scared to death for him. "Don't…" He looked fixedly at the floor, swallowing hard.

Jack shook him again, gently, a tiny movement, just trying to get him to look up, look at him, talk to him. "Daniel, you have to trust me."

"How can I trust you!" At least one of them was yelling. That had to help. But Daniel knew his expression would be one of reproach, not anger, that his eyes were saying: How could you? There was so much he wanted to say, like 'I have always trusted you, you son-of-a-bitch. Always. There has never been one millisecond from the moment we first met when I haven't trusted you, and you know that. You're the one who doesn't trust me .'

He pulled loose from Jack's grip and wrapped his arms around his chest, trying to feel and look less like a child who'd just found out his dog was dead instead of living on a farm somewhere like Daddy had promised him. There were days when he could forgive Jack anything except making him feel as if he was eight years old. "You lied to me." It sounded so pathetic. He could hear how pathetic this sounded but his belief in Jack was more than half of everything he had, it was the keystone of this new life he'd been needing to cling to so damned hard since Sha're's death, and Jack had just smashed it.

"Daniel, listen to me – " Jack was moving him away from the others, away from the High Priest who was still telling him that he would die slowly at Onuris' hands, the frightened priests trying to soothe their leader, the wounded people who kept looking to him for something he couldn't possibly give them. Moving him away from anything that might possibly hurt or upset him, steering him gently while Daniel let him do it.

Still keeping his arms firmly wrapped around his chest, Daniel said tautly, "Tell me the truth. No more lies. Don't tell me it was a bad dream or it never happened or that I wandered off and someone hit me."

"Okay, the truth." Jack had successfully steered him into an alcove now, spun him round and pushed him back against the wall, wedged him in tight where he couldn't get away. It was like being back in the damned cell again with Mackenzie's aides looming over him. Jack's voice was clear and very precise. "You did wander off. You came here. We think the priests found you looking at the temple and knocked you unconscious. Then they tortured you with some Goa'uld device. For hours. We couldn't find you. We couldn't get the damned door to open to let us into the center of the temple so we were stuck in here while they – questioned you. When they brought you out again to sacrifice you, you weren't even you any more. You didn't know who you were, who they were, who I was. Anything. Teal'c fired at the statue of their damned god to create a diversion so we could grab you back, but it was holding up the ceiling and the whole place fell down around our ears. There wasn't time to help the people here because we had to – get you back before we lost you for good. You were in a lot of pain so we gave you the morphine, that's why we don't have any left, but even so it took a long time to…And, to be honest, given what these people had done to you, and how they were all happy to stand there and watch you be sacrificed, I didn't really give a damn whether there were people dead or dying in here or not. Neither did Teal'c. Carter did. She wanted to come back and check for survivors. I wouldn't let her. So, you want to be pissy with anyone, leave her out of it."

Daniel swallowed again, wanting to kick Jack so hard his shins bled and then kick himself just as hard, because he could read between the lines all too well here. Jack had saved him; that was what it boiled down to. He'd done something stupid, put them all through hell, and damned near died. And against all the odds, Jack had saved him. Again. "Then it is my fault these people are dead."

Jack rolled his eyes in disbelief. "I don't think you made them torture you, Daniel. I don't think you put out an invitation for them to show up and watch your heart cut out. All you did was look around their temple. The way they chose to react to it was really up to them. You can feel bad about disobeying my order and scaring the shit out of me if you want to, but that's as far as it goes."

"Why did you lie to me?"

"Because I was afraid if you remembered what they'd done to you, you'd go like…that again. It was a terrible thing they did to you, Daniel. Why would I want you to remember it?"

"Because it happened and I had a right to know it."

"Even if remembering it destroyed you?" Jack held up his finger and thumb a needle's-width apart. "We came this close to losing you. Forever. And I am still not very happy about it. And to be honest with you I would still like to put a bullet in the High Priest and his little helpmates. And if you keep pissing me off I still might, so, don't push me, okay? I don't have your near infinite capacity for forgiveness and I feel about these people pretty much like you feel about the Goa'uld. Now does that clarify things for you a little?"

Good, Jack was angry with him again, that was better. Jack overflowing with compassion for him always got under his defenses much too damned easily. He'd lost his parents too young, that was the trouble, and he knew it, but even knowing the cause of it couldn't stop it having an effect. He'd had a two decade gap when there hadn't been anyone who cared enough to tell him all the dumb annoying things people with parents took for granted, like he should take his head out of a book and go and get some fresh air, or there was no way in hell he was going outside without a sweater on a night like this . He'd thought he'd got past needing it and then Jack had turned up and started filling all these gaps inside him he hadn't even known he had: Do up your bootlaces before you break your neck, Daniel. Keep your head down , Daniel. When did you last eat? Coffee isn't food, that doesn't count. When was the last time you ate food ? How long have you been working on that damned report anyway? Well that is way too long. You see me switching this light off? That's kind of a hint it's time to go home now. What do you mean you never learned to play softball when you were a child? What kind of weird kid were you anyway? Okay, that's the plan for this weekend then: teach Daniel how to be normal…

Another of Jack's incredibly annoying traits. Being the stepfather/older brother/best friend he'd never had. Being goddamned indispensable. They were never going to be equals. What had ever made him think they could be equals? He was going to be Jack's surrogate son forever, Sam's kid brother, Teal'c's…Well actually, he couldn't fault Teal'c. Teal'c had always managed to make him feel safe without making him feel inadequate. Had always treated him like someone with a wisdom beyond his years who should be handled with respect. And Sam didn't really rub in the clever older sister thing at all. That was just how he felt around her sometimes, especially when she started talking astrophysics and he had no idea what she was telling him…And even Jack probably made huge efforts not to be condescending. A few hours under Makepeace's command had taught him how tactful Jack was by comparison. So it was probably just him. But God, he would have liked not to be the one who had to be rescued for a change. The one who did the rescu ing .

"Daniel…?"

Daniel collected himself. "Hmmm?"

Jack shook his head in disbelief. "Did you hear anything I just said to you? Were you even listening?"

Daniel said expressionlessly, "They tortured me. You rescued me. You didn't mean to kill these people and you only couldn't save them because you were too busy saving me. You couldn't come back here once I was awake because you didn't want me to remember what they'd done to me. And you couldn't take me home like you wanted to because the DHD wasn't working. And you've had a really bad day. And I'm sorry."

"No one is blaming you for anything that happened today."

Daniel turned and looked at the High Priest. "He is."

Jack's hands on his shoulders were unexpectedly rough. He flinched as he was pulled around to face him and winced again from the way Jack was speaking through gritted teeth. "He's a religious fanatic who believes in an alien parasite who thinks he's a god. He's someone who tortured you for hours and hours , for nothing, Daniel, for no goddamned reason at all, just because he thinks his freakin' god wanted him to. He is not someone you want to listen to."

"I'm on your list now, aren't I?" Daniel read the truth in the man's eyes. "Of the things you blame yourself for? The things you won't ever forgive yourself for? Because they tortured me and you couldn't stop it?"

Jack squeezed his shoulders before saying much more gently, "If you are then it's my decision, not yours."

Daniel gestured at the worshippers. "So, is this why they think I'm the Chosen One, because I wasn't sacrificed like I should have been?"

"You survived Shokmar."

It was such a shock to hear someone other than the four of them speaking English that Daniel couldn't help gaping at the man who had appeared at their side. He looked like all the other worshippers, slight and dark, skin dusty from the rubble, gaze and nervous smile apologetic, except that his eyes were unexpectedly a bright pale blue

Daniel stared at him in surprise. "You understand our speech?"

"Some. Yes. They think you are the Chosen One because you survived Shokmar. It is written that only the Chosen One shall survive Shokmar."

"Written where?"

"What is 'Shokmar'?"

The man looked between them apologetically and Daniel turned to Jack who sighed and waved a hand. "Answer him."

"Shokmar is what they did to you in the temple. It made you lose yourself. But now you have found yourself again. No one else has ever done this."

"Yes, well I very much doubt that anyone else the priests…shokmared had friends who would come and rescue him who happened to have medical kits full of morphine, not to mention someone as stubborn as Jack deciding that today wasn't a good day for Daniel to go back to the padded cell after all." He felt Jack wince next to him and presumed this one had been too close for comfort. He moistened his lips. "I'm Daniel Jackson. This is Jack O'Neill. We're…" Somehow the words 'peaceful travelers' didn't seem appropriate given the havoc they had wreaked on this world. "We're explorers."

"I am khenu."

"Okay, Khenu…" Jack began.

Daniel put a hand on Jack's arm. "No, that's not a name. That's what he is. He means he's an incomer." He met the man's pale blue gaze. "You're telling us you're not from this world? You're a visitor here, like us?"

"Yes. I am a…visitor. But I am a true believer. We have awaited your coming a long time."

Very aware of Jack's raised eyebrows, Daniel said quickly, "I really think you're mixing me up with someone else. There was nothing 'miraculous' about what happened to me. I was just lucky that my friends – " Which was when he remembered what else 'tewet' meant. "Oh my God – 'tewet' – 'avatar'. You think Jack, Sam and Teal'c are…avatars?"

He would have been more surprised if Jack hadn't immediately murmured in his ear, "What's an avatar?"

"It's from a Sanskrit word, avatara ,meaning 'descent'. In Hindu mythology it means the appearance on earth of a deity in a visible form. But in this context I think they're using it to mean – angels."

"Excuse me?" Jack stared at him blankly. "You're a god and we're your…angels?"

"Well, no, obviously not. But that seems to be the delusion these people are um, laboring under."

"Sir?"

Daniel turned to see Sam holding up a small greyish object. She had that look of mingled satisfaction and anxiety that told him at once she had solved a problem which had been annoying her but the answer wasn't helping them much.

"Yes, Major?"

"I found it." She put the object into Jack's hand and Daniel peered at it curiously. He'd seen a lot of Goa'uld technology over the years and there had been very little to like about any of it. This appeared to be no exception. Sam continued, "The transmitter. It was in the statue. I remembered what you said about being on Argos. How Pelops had – "

Daniel nodded. "Yes, of course. It's an obvious way for the Goa'uld to monitor the level of – devotion they're inspiring in the populace."

Sam was pointing out the circuitry to them. No doubt all those different colored crystals meant something to her but they just looked like very small Christmas tree lights to him. "This is the transmitter. I think there was some kind of beam set up within the statue, which was broken when – "

She hesitated and Daniel finished for her, " – When Teal'c fired his staff weapon into the statue of Onuris and smashed it to pieces."

He saw that quick questioning look she darted at Jack, his shrug. "I had to tell him, Carter. He was blaming himself for the whole damned mess."

"Can you not talk about me as if I'm not here?"

She bit her lip. "Daniel, we didn't want to lie to you, but we so nearly lost you…"

"I know. I know." Rub it in how damned lucky he was to be alive because Jack had worked another miracle, dragged him back from the dead yet again. Blue light flared in his memory once more and he flinched from it. Suddenly he heard his own voice screaming ' Jack…? ' Oh God, he'd been screaming for...Did Jack know? He darted a quick glance at Jack and winced at the expression in his eyes. Damn. He knew. Daniel still had nightmares about seeing that Goa'uld go into Jack but he'd never realized until they were on the tel'tak how Jack also had nightmares about him. He wrapped his arms tight around his chest, trying to keep out the chill of all those memories.

"Onuris is coming." The local man had sunk back into the shadows when Sam appeared and Daniel had almost forgotten he was there. He gave a little jump and saw the other give him an awestruck glance. "He is coming, just as it is written."

"Yeah, where is it written?" Jack demanded.

"I wanted to talk to you about that, sir," Sam took back the transmitter and Daniel noticed her gaze flicking professionally to the newcomer, assessing the threat he offered, the soldier in her deciding it was minimal, the scientist in her visibly making a mental note to ask him questions later. "The people keep telling Teal'c things about us that haven't happened yet, which is a little disconcerting to say the least. And they weren't in the temple because they wanted to see Daniel killed. They were hoping to see him rescued."

"What?"

Daniel saw all the color drain from Jack's face and caught his arm. "Jack? Are you okay? Do you want to sit down?"

Jack shook him off angrily and held up a warning finger. "I am fine, Daniel. Don't fuss." He turned back to Sam. "Explain."

She took off her cap and ran a hand through her hair, the glow from the flickering torchlight putting rippling streaks of red into the gold. "Well as Teal'c and I understand it, there seem to be two separate religions on this planet. One is the original cult of Onuris, which is what one could call the 'official' religion. The other is a secret cult of followers of the…Chosen One. They call him the Deliverer because according to their holy writing he's the one who delivers them from the False god, and they've been awaiting his coming for a while now. The priests of Onuris are aware of the other cult and ruthlessly persecute any off-worlders who arrive here without authority from Onuris by torturing them and then publicly putting them to death, partly to prove that they're not the Chosen One. But it’s written of the Chosen One that he would also be tortured by the priests and would appear to be 'lost to himself' but then he would miraculously be restored. That was what the people were hoping to see, and…" She sighed and waved a hand at Daniel.

Jack grimaced. "And Dannyboy fits the bill very nicely." He raised his eyebrows at Daniel. "Well, it isn't every day you get mistaken for a deity, is it? I hope you put on clean underwear this morning."

"Sir, Teal'c doesn't think it is a case of mistaken identity."

"What?"

"What?"

They both asked the question in unison. Sam shrugged. "I'm just repeating what he told me. He says that he thinks the Chosen One is Daniel."

Jack took a deep breath. "Look, I think Daniel's a wonderful human being too but I can't say I've ever noticed him walking on water or feeding the five thousand or parting the Red Sea or whatever the hell it is wannabe deities do."

"Sam, it doesn't make any sense. Teal'c knows I'm not a…god as well as you do. You must have misunderstood him."

"Daniel, who says their 'Chosen One' is a god? Onuris isn't. Apophis isn't. Thor isn't. You and I know better that anyone that sometimes a god isn't a god, he's just…"

Enlightenment hit him. "Someone in the right place at the right time."

They exchanged a long look. She nodded. "Exactly."

Daniel collected himself and turned and looked at the three priests. The High Priest was clearly fading, dying; the others were praying over him, saying some rite for the injured man Daniel didn't recognize. Odd, when that fragment from the Book of the Dead had remained so similar, and yet their rituals for preparing the soul on its way had changed so much. No funerary statue to capture the dying one's last breath, or perhaps in their confusion and fear, the lower order priests were forgetting important parts of the ritual, incapable of giving the comfort the man needed. It was instinctive to go towards them, to offer help…

Memories sliced through his mind, cold and sharp as an axe blade. Wesheb! Wesheb! The priests calling upon him to answer them, to tell him where he came from, who had sent him to deny their god, what demon he served. He'd only understood one word in ten, and hadn't understood at all from where their rage was coming, their hatred of him, their will to hurt him so badly for so long for a reason he couldn't begin to fathom. As though he had done them some great and terrible wrong. He was tugging at chains that wouldn't let him go, the blue light was coming closer. He read the malevolent satisfaction in the High Priest's eyes as the beam found his body again, seared his nerves, sent screaming white fire to every cell…

"It's okay, Daniel…it's okay…You're safe now."

The white glare dimmed; the blackness misted into grey and then a soft contrast of torchlight and shadow as Daniel cautiously opened his eyes to find that he was on his feet this time. He knew who he was and where he was too: in the temple of Onuris, recovering from a flashback to being…shokmared by fanatical priests. That was something. Still clinging to Jack though; his face pressed into his stubble-prickly neck, smelling the fresh sweat overlaying a faint memory of aftershave. Jack's arms were around him, holding him up, one hand gently patting Daniel's back, the other stroking his hair as before. This was getting to be rather an embarrassing habit.

Daniel disentangled his fingers from their panic grip, straightened up cautiously, and put a hand up to the tingling left side of his face. He risked a glance at the older man and muttered, "If we're going to keep doing this, you really need to shave."

Jack turned Daniel's head to the side to examine it. "Great. Now you have whisker burn. That could take some explaining."

Daniel darted him another sideways look but could see not a hint of embarrassment in those brown eyes. Concern, yes; discomfort, very emphatically no. He felt an unwilling rush of gratitude towards Jack. How many men of his age and background would have taken this in their stride the way Jack did? There were times when Jack was interrupting him before he was five words into even a simplified explanation of something when Daniel really wanted to point out that hugging his ignorance to himself like a security blanket was a pretty shallow reaction to new information. But then he would remember all those unexpected depths the man had. Ones you just didn't expect to find in an Air Force colonel, never mind someone who went out of his way to present himself as Mister Average. No way in hell, for instance, would Colonel Robert Makepeace have ever let Daniel take refuge from bad memories in his arms, even once. And, perhaps more importantly, Daniel would have pulled out all his own fingernails before he would have done so.

Daniel felt Jack's fingertips lightly touching his upper arms, a supporting grip just to steady him as he swayed a little. "That wasn't such a bad one," Jack said it as though Daniel having blackouts in his arms happened all the time. "You came round much faster that time."

"Are you okay, Daniel?"

Sam's blue eyes were full of concern and he had another flash of memory: Sam telling him he was hallucinating, delirious. He could remember the exact look on her face as she said it, the way she hadn't met his eye. She'd hated lying to him. Teal'c telling him he was with his friends again. All of them working so damned hard to get him back. Sometimes he really wondered why they bothered.

"I can't take him. I can't take him!"

It had never occurred to him until that moment he wouldn't be going to live with his grandfather. It wasn't what he wanted. He wanted his parents back, of course he did, but while you had a living relative, you knew you would at least be taken care of by someone with a few of the same references; someone who knew who you were without need for explanation. He had noticed the odd glances the women from Social Services had exchanged as they drove him to the dull brownstone building where the assessment meeting was going to take place. As much as he had presumed anything, he had presumed he would be leaving the meeting in his Grandfather's company. He'd been picturing himself in that dusty house with all its fascinating oddities. Not so different from the dusty apartment in Egypt where every flat surface was covered in artifacts. He hadn't really been listening to the conversation going on over his head, tuning it out like he'd been tuning out most things recently, sinking back into that comforting fantasy where he thought of all the ways it could be a mistake: His parents had been shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe but had made a raft and a perfect sail and were coming home now; their plane had fallen from the sky but they were cutting their way through the green fronds of the jungle to get back to him, as indomitable and independent as he remembered them…But then the memory would intervene. The snapping chain. The falling coverstone. The screams. The blood.

He'd been jolted back into the present to find his Grandfather on his feet, refusing to look in Daniel's direction, panic in his accented voice. "I can't . I'm not suitable. I'm not responsible. I can't look after a boy of his age. I travel all over the world. I couldn't possibly take a child with me."

It had taken Daniel a little while to make sense of what he was hearing. That he wouldn't be going home with 'Nick'. That he didn't have a home to go to. The man didn't want him. He'd gasped with the shock of it. It had never occurred to him until that instant his grandfather might not take him. He'd thought Nick would grumble a little, maybe act like Daniel's father did sometimes when there was a lot to be done, the light was fading and Daniel had got bored with waiting for them to finish what they were doing and pay attention to him. He'd sometimes felt like a nuisance they didn't want under their feet for a few hours, just while his father was busy, but not unloved even then. All abandonments until this moment had been temporary. He was still getting used to the permanence of the way in which his parents had left him behind this time. But this was deliberate. This was a choice his grandfather was making. He didn't want Daniel.

It had come to him with a terrible sense of emptiness in that moment, that no one wanted Daniel. He had ceased to be someone people gave thanks for, kissed goodnight and murmured they loved, and become a problem strangers would now have to solve.

He'd stared at his grandfather in disbelief and seen the depth of his hurt and confusion; the pain of that revelation, reflected in the way the man flinched. Nick had said, "I am sorry…" like someone begging for absolution. "Daniel, I am sorry."

He'd gone on hoping Nick would change his mind right up until the door closed behind him, the footsteps had stopped their apologetic echo on the shiny linoleum floor. Sitting there with a chill that went so deep he felt he'd never be warm again, Daniel had realized he was now, for the first time in his life, utterly unwanted by anyone.

"Daniel…?"

He opened his eyes and found Jack looking at him with that carefully neutral expression he always used to hide near-panic-stricken concern with apparent calm.

"You okay?" The tone was conversational, but Jack's hands were curled into fists. Idly, Daniel noticed the way Jack jammed them into his pockets and rocked on his heels. "Daniel? You feeling okay?"

"I'm fine," he said it automatically. He realized he was very tired and wanted to go home. He didn't know which home, the SGC, his apartment, Abydos, or all the way back to Egypt, but somewhere that very emphatically wasn't here. He wanted to curl up in the dust, on the bloodstained stone and sleep for a week. He wanted to be back on the tel'tak with his head on Jack's shoulder and Sam where he could see her if he opened an eye, and if he craned his neck he could just see Teal'c's left elbow as the Jaffa operated the controls. Somewhere he knew they were all alive and well and couldn't be hurt.

"You kind of zoned out on me there, Danny."

'Danny'? Uh oh. Never a good sign. Jack only called him that when he was trying to soften a blow. Like when the Goa'uld you thought you were in love with apparently got burned to death in front of you, or Jack was trying to find a tactful way to tell you not to get yourself gang-raped by the scum of the galaxy, or someone slammed a door in your face one time too many and you realized how much ignorance, fear, and superstition you’d met with over the years and how damned weary of it you were. They must be in even deeper shit than he thought if Jack was calling him 'Danny'.

"I'm tired."

"You are all tired." It was the English-speaking native again. No, not a native. Someone from another planet, just like them. That placating smile. Weird eyes. He ought to ask the man's name but it felt like too much effort even to open his mouth. The nameless helpmate said, "You need food and somewhere to shelter."

"What we need is to get the damned DHD working and get the hell off this world."

Jack seemed to be talking from a long way off.

"Sir, I think Daniel needs to eat something and get some more sleep. He looks really…"

So did Sam.

"You heard the man, Carter, Onuris is coming here. Now, what the hell do you think he's going to do when he gets here? And to whom? I want you and Teal'c to go and work on the DHD. I don't care what it takes, get it working, find us a way off this damned world." Jack turned his head. "Teal'c!"

Something was hissing. He looked across at the High Priest and there was red wetness on the man's mouth. Although Daniel knew it was where he was coughing up blood from his crushed chest it gave the impression he had eaten something raw; ripped out Daniel's heart and swallowed it. He looked as though he wanted to. There was still that hate burning in his dark eyes; unquenchable; unchangeable; something he would carry with him into death: the way you looked at your murderer. The hissing was louder. It made him think of Apophis. The serpent god of the underworld who ruled the night. For years it had just been a name to him. A myth. Like Kheb. Kheb was a myth. Just a place in a book where Osiris had hidden from Seth. Perhaps none of it was true. Perhaps Jack had been right in his first reaction. Perhaps the child was gone forever and would never know Daniel had looked for him, wanted him; that he had been loved after all. And if Apophis was really dead this time, why was that snake still hissing so damned loudly…?

"Teal'c? You and Carter get working on that DHD. The wounded are going to have to do the best they can to help each other and the sooner we get the 'gate open the sooner we can send back medical assistance and – damn it to hell – Daniel!" 

Why was he back in Jack's arms again anyway? He hadn't seen the blue light this time. And why was Jack yelling his name from such a very long way away…?

***

O'Neill looked at his watch. Teal'c and Carter had been gone for two hours. Which meant Daniel had been unconscious for two hours. Carter had said she didn't think Daniel was relapsing; his body was still in physical shock from the trauma of shokmar – which was why when O'Neill had held him in his arms, Daniel had been trembling faintly the whole time – and his blood sugar was low; that was all. What he needed was rest, food, and warmth. Twelve hours sleep and he'd probably make a full recovery. The difficulty lay in trying to provide him with twelve hours sleep when they were trapped on an alien world, and if Carter and Teal'c couldn't fix the DHD were probably going to have to hightail it to the hills to hide out there.

Harun, the helpful native with the Siberian husky eyes, had promised to outline the local topography for him in case flight became unavoidable. If he couldn't quite manage a map apparently he was willing to act as a guide. In the meantime, Harun was offering them food and shelter, and as that was the nicest thing anyone had offered them since they'd set foot on this lousy world, O'Neill was accepting what was on offer with thanks.

If Harun hadn't offered them his hospitality he wasn't quite sure what he would have done because when he'd barely caught Daniel before he hit the temple floor, he'd been feeling pretty close to despair. Daniel had been frighteningly white, limp, and chilled, the only thing proving he was still alive that unnatural tremor vibrating through him. He and Teal'c had picked the unconscious Daniel up between them and then realized simultaneously they had nowhere to take him. When Harun had said, "Come with me," O'Neill had followed him without a word.

Harun's hut might be Spartan but it had given them somewhere warm and dry to lay Daniel down, and the hot broth he'd insisted they all swallow had definitely made O'Neill feel a lot stronger than he'd been feeling ten minutes before. He'd seen it put a spark of color back into Carter's pale cheek as well, and even Teal'c had looked restored by it. Their situation still sucked, of course, but at least they weren't as hungry and cold as they could have been. He just wished Daniel would wake up so he could shovel some food down him in readiness for the strategic withdrawing they were almost certainly going to have to be doing very soon.

***

Hear me, my Daniel…

She was lost and she was found. A corpse bled of color beneath a white sheet. Alive beside his bedside, her warm, soft hand against his cheek. She was part of the SGC. She was wrapped in a winding sheet and buried beneath a billion grains of sand. She was in bed beside him, his to touch and love again. He'd missed her body heat like a part of his own pulse; the way her hair brushed the bare skin of his chest when she kissed him. Missed the scent, feel and taste of her so very much and now he had it back again, but not to keep. Because Sha're was dead. Even as she gazed into his eyes and touched his face, she was dead. But it couldn't be the end, not like this. He had to have at least the hope of waking up beside her again, of turning his head to find her with that smile she saved just for him.

Promise me you will save the child!

"I promise." She was begging him as though she thought he would refuse but of course, he wouldn't refuse. She'd never asked him for anything before. Of course, he would find her child and make sure that he was safe. I promise, Sha're, I promise.

Except he didn't know where to look. Didn't have a single clue to follow up, and there was a whole galaxy out there full of worlds which might be Kheb. He'd never found his wife. He'd failed her when she'd been alive. Who was to say he wouldn't fail her after death as well. He knew Sha're's ghost was watching him, like Echo fading as Narcissus lost himself in his own reflection. Waiting for him to fulfill the promise he'd made her. Waiting for him to find her child so she could finally sleep in peace…

***

Teal'c read his own defeat in the blue eyes of Major Carter. They both knew there was not enough time. Once before they had examined a DHD which had failed to function and in that case they had managed to find a way to make it work without needing to repair the broken crystals. In this instance he had no doubt that given enough time, he and Major Carter could over-ride the Goa'uld transmitter and use the DHD to dial home. But he suspected they had very little time left, and nor could they be sure of the people clustering around the Stargate silently observing their actions. Some of those who had escaped from the temple undoubtedly were followers of the Chosen One who might be deemed hostile to the Goa'uld, but even they might not wish them to leave the planet, taking Daniel Jackson with them, when he was effectively their god.

They had spent some minutes transferring as many of their supplies as they could carry – something which would turn out to be a waste of time if they managed to get the DHD to work but which might save their lives if they were trapped on this world for any length of time.

"If I just understood the way the Goa'uld crystals work a little more clearly." Major Carter wiped a hand across her forehead before bending back over the DHD, her voice slightly muffled as she spoke from within the bowels of the device. "I've tried analyzing them under every piece of equipment in Cheyenne Mountain but there are irregularities in their structure which I've just never seen in any equivalent mineral on Earth."

Teal'c adjusted his flashlight so she could better see into the DHD. "Major Carter, when we were returning from Netu, the Tok'ra Aldwin told me they had recently found a far better means to remove even an unwilling Goa'uld without injuring the host."

"See, when I looked at it through a spectrograph – " Carter pulled her head out of the DHD, his non sequitur finally penetrating. She frowned and pushed her short hair back from her face with her arm. "That's good news, Teal'c. Skaara is still out there."

"But Sha're is dead." Teal'c held her gaze. Both Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill had tried to talk to him about his act. Had reassured him of its rightness. But their words had done nothing to ease the pain inside him. Only Daniel Jackson could offer him absolution and the young scholar had done so, as unhesitatingly on waking in the infirmary as he had when his wife was still dying from Teal'c's staff weapon blast. Those words had helped to dilute the guilt he felt for his part in Sha're's death considerably, but Aldwin's words had pierced him like a dagger. "Had I only shot to wound instead of to kill – "

"Then Daniel might be dead now." Major Carter was giving him all her attention now. Gaze fixed on him, unblinking and certain. "You said it yourself, Teal'c, even one more second would probably have killed him. And by the time you reached that tent you already had no choice. Perhaps if Daniel had put a bullet straight through Amaunet's left hand the second he walked in there things might have turned out differently, but once Amaunet had him in the grip of the ribbon device there was nothing any of the rest of us could do except kill the Goa'uld who was killing him. If you hadn't done it, the Colonel would have done, and if he hadn't, I would. Daniel was too close to being dead for any of us to do anything except shoot to kill because while there was a breath left in Amaunet's body we all know she would have used it to murder him."

"But Sha're could have been saved."

"Maybe she could. Maybe in another dimension we managed to knock her on the head and take her to Cimmeria and she survived Thor's Hammer while Amaunet died. Maybe in another dimension again Sha're managed to stop Amaunet killing Daniel. But in this dimension Sha're concentrated all her energies on telling Daniel what she wanted him to do and trusted in you to save his life. Which you did. She didn't mind dying, Teal'c. She accepted it. And what's more she told him to forgive you with just about the last breath in her body. Don't you think that also means you ought to forgive yourself? If Sha're didn't blame you then who else has the right to? Even you."

Teal'c looked at the blue-grey circle of the Stargate. "Major Carter, however many times I try to tell myself I did the right thing, an innocent woman is still dead because of me. Daniel Jackson is without a wife because of me. Kasuf is without a daughter, and Skaara, should we ever find him again, is without a sister, because of me."

Major Carter leant across and put a hand on his arm, squeezing it to get his attention until he turned his head and looked at her. "And Daniel's alive because of you, Teal'c, and I'm alive, and the Colonel's alive, and so are an awful lot of other people. You may have done some bad things in your life but saving Daniel from the Goa'uld who was killing him wasn't one of them. And sometimes you need to remind yourself about all the good things you've done as well."

The clunk of the first chevron lighting up took them both by surprise. Teal'c could barely identify the sound at first, despite its familiarity, his mind still fixed on that scene inside Amaunet's tent, Daniel Jackson lying on the ground with his hand outstretched to his dead wife. But as the second chevron engaged he realized what he was hearing. "Major Carter!"

"Way ahead of you, Teal'c." She was already snatching up their packs, pushing one into his hands. "Time to get out of sight."

***

Daniel awoke to warmth, flickering shadows, the red-gold glow of nearby firelight, the smell of broth cooking in a cauldron…Abydos? Was he on Abydos? He hadn't had that flicker of hope in a while. All a dream? Sha're never stolen…? But immediately there was a pang of loss to balance the relief, because that meant Teal'c and Sam weren't real and Jack had never come back for him…

He opened his eyes and saw Jack drawing lines in the dust of the floor he was sitting on. Regret and relief balanced each other out so that there was no discernible emotion except a vague feeling of…rightness. This wasn't the best possible life any Daniel Jackson could have had, but it was his life and he recognized it. For the first time it sunk in how he'd almost lost it today. He'd been so busy feeling aggrieved about having his sanity handed back to him, he hadn't taken any time out to be grateful. There was a lot to be said for not being a gibbering wreck, after all.

He blinked a few times, trying to get used to the light level, and realized he was in a one room dwelling with stone and clay walls, a dirt floor, woven bedding strips, a fire on which a cooking pot was hanging. There were a number of smells, hot food, stale sweat, feet that had been in their boots too long, spices he couldn't recognize, tallow fat that carried an unsavory boar taint. He watched in fascination as Jack sketched out mountains on the floor with his forefinger, leaving a trail of jagged ridges in the dirt.

Why was Jack drawing lines in the dust? That was usually Daniel's role. He was talking to the English-speaking local and they were mapping something together. Jack was working out the lie of the land, lines of retreat, hiding-places. Places to hide him.

His brain seemed to be working much better now because he was suddenly very aware of how dangerous he had become to everyone. If they couldn't get off this world before Onuris arrived, they were never getting off. The Goa'uld would send his Jaffa to guard the gate then demand retribution against the people who had destroyed his statue and temple, murdered his High Priest and undermined his believers' faith in him. And he would want the so-called Chosen One put to death where everyone could see it done. Daniel had become as dangerous as –

As Sha're's son. He flinched from that thought because he really didn't want to hear it. It kept trying to creep up on him and tap him on the shoulder. All those questions about what the hell was he going to do with the boy if he did find him? How could he possibly keep him safe from the System Lords? How could he put not just SG-1 and not just the SGC but the entire planet at such risk because of a promise he thought he'd made to his wife? Earth might be part of the Protected Planets' Treaty but he wondered how good that safeguard would hold if Earth was harboring a child who contained all the knowledge of the Goa'uld; all their secrets; all their weaknesses…

Plenty of time to worry about that when he'd found Kheb. He'd take the boy to the Nox world – except there was no way of reaching the Nox world, of course. Give him to the Tok'ra? He wasn't sure that he trusted the Tok'ra. Not to take care of a child. They would have killed all of them to destroy Sokar. Who was to say what they might do to a baby if they thought the knowledge was within him that would help them defeat the Goa'uld. The Asgard? They would never agree to take him and even if they did they weren't human. He was a human baby. He was Sha're's baby. He had so very nearly been Daniel's baby. Give him back to Kasuf who was at least his grandfather and who would love him when that might cause the System Lords to come in ships and wipe out everyone on Abydos?

What was that old black and white movie Jack had made him watch while the man was convalescing? 'Curse of the Demon' or something. From some M.R. James story about a piece of paper with a runic inscription that would cause the death of whoever received it. You had to pass it on to someone else so the demon would come and find him instead of you. If you didn't, wherever and whoever you were, it would hunt you down and destroy you. Jack had told him the movie was a classic and he had to watch it but Daniel had forgotten the director's name three minutes after Jack had told him it. He'd just followed the story, raptly, as transfixed as he had been by those stories of Egyptian mythology when he was a child. It was only when it was finished and Jack had hobbled into the kitchen to get them both a glass of whisky that Daniel had become aware of a growing unease. As Jack put the glass in his hand and said 'Cheers…' he'd realized Sha're's baby, the child he'd promised her he would find and protect, might as well be the piece of paper in the film. A demon in the fog might be more spine-chilling than the System Lords, but they were real and every bit as sure. He'd dropped the glass.

"…Okay, so North is a no-go, I'm really not a swamp-lover, and impenetrable mountains don't sound like a rest-cure but they'd be a good place to hide…"

It occurred to Daniel that Jack was planning for failure. But Jack never planned for failure. Jack didn't even admit the possibility of failure existed. This was Jack-there's-always-an-or-we're-not-dead-yet-O'Neill and if reality looked like it was going to rain on his parade well reality could go chase itself and in the meantime he was going to stare fixedly at his teammates until they come up with something clever because, damnit, that was their job.

That was another thing about Jack: unwavering belief Sam and Teal'c could solve anything if they put their minds to it. The last thing Daniel remembered, Jack had been sending Sam and Teal'c off to fix the DHD and now here was Jack planning for them not being able to fix the DHD? That made no sense whatsoever.

"Hey, Daniel."

He blinked as he realized Jack had noticed he was awake and was nodding at him. "You okay?"

"Yes."

"You passed out."

"Oh."

"On me."

"Sorry." Daniel sat up and ran a hand through his hair. "I heard something hissing."

"Yeah, that would have been all the blood in your brain going AWOL. Next time you hear that noise tell me before you fall over."

"You caught me." Not a question. When had Jack ever not caught him?

"This time."

Daniel realized they were going to have different perceptions of these events forever – supposing Onuris gave them more than a few hours to mull over the day's happenings. To him this was going to be a mission where he'd wandered off, got captured, got a lot of people killed and totally traumatized Jack, but where Jack had miraculously coaxed him back to the land of the sane, then looked after him far better than he deserved while he threw a hissy fit because the man had dared to raise his voice to him. To Jack it was going to be a mission where he'd failed to keep Daniel safe from harm, failed to save him from torture, got him back by the skin of his teeth but failed to get him off the planet before he had to tell Daniel what had really happened, and was now failing to keep him safe from Onuris' vengeance. This was not one they were ever going to agree on.

"Where are Sam and Teal'c?"

"Trying to fix the DHD."

And that wasn't right either. ' Trying to fix the DHD'? Surely that should be ' Fixing the DHD.' It occurred to Daniel that this mission coming after their joyride through Netu must have taken a hell of a toll on Jack's confidence. He'd sometimes found the man's illogical optimism irritating but he was missing it now; hadn't realized what security they all took from Jack's certainty until the man started to have doubts. It didn't seem fair to say, 'Stop having doubts, Jack. That's our job!' but that was how he felt.

"You must eat." The English-speaker again, putting a bowl in his hands so like the earthenware he'd always eaten from on Abydos he felt a spasm of mingled recognition and loss. Then the man was ladling some broth into it which smelt like the stew Sha're had made him when he was recovering from fever. He'd had a lot of fevers, immunity obviously a little weakened by different water and new variants of germs to which he had less resistance than the local people. Sha're had always been so patient about nursing him back to health, tempting his sluggish appetite with special delicacies, collecting herbs to grind for cordials, spoon-feeding him medicine…Skaara had accused her good-naturedly of wanting to turn Daniel into her child. Had told his sister it was high time she had a baby of her own so she could fuss over him and got on with scolding, neglecting and ignoring her husband the way proper wives did. It seemed such a tragedy a woman who would have made such a wonderful mother had never got the chance to be one, even to her own son. Sha're had died not even knowing her baby's name.

"Hey…"

He looked up in surprise to find Jack sitting next to him. The man tapped his finger on the bowl in Daniel's hands. "Don't just look at it, Daniel, eat it. Please?"

That one word told Daniel all the things Jack wasn't saying about how they couldn't afford to have Daniel slowing them down or passing out every five minutes. That it seemed likely they were going to be fugitives so they were all going to need their strength. There could be no weak links in this particular chain.

"Sorry." He ate the food, quickly and mechanically, trying not to wince as some of the vegetables burnt his mouth. He felt a little sick but that was probably just hunger. Either way the broth had to be consumed.

Jack rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. "You feeling okay?"

He nodded, gaze on the pulses floating in a reddish sea of stew. "I'm fine." He swallowed quickly as his tongue was burnt again then felt the mouthful sear him all the way down to his stomach. It smelt better than it tasted, the vegetables had a bitter aftertaste and there was a faint greasiness to the gravy that spoke of old fat stock which had been reheated too many times, but he could still feel warmth and strength returning with every bite.

"I don't know what that stuff is but we all ate it and we're still breathing."

Daniel glanced up at him. "Pity about those purple blotches all over your skin though."

He saw a flicker of relief in the other man's eyes. Jack made to slap him lightly around the back of the head but even that obviously seemed too brutal to him in his sense of heightened protectiveness because the hand came back to rest on his shoulder again. "Just eat the damned food, will you?"

"Can we have home cooking on every mission from now on?"

Good. Jack was looking a lot happier. The jokes might be lame but that didn't matter. Screwed up shokmar victims clearly didn't make jokes, even bad ones. Relatively sane people did. The man shrugged. "Sure, if you want to be responsible for it."

"Uh, Jack, don't you remember you said you'd rather eat dog food than my cooking?"

The man scratched his jaw. "Well, I was feeling irritable, you wouldn't let me go and watch the game."

"You had a third degree burn on your leg." Only a couple of spoonfuls to go now, he could do this and he could keep it down.

Jack held up a finger. "See, you were so damned picky, it was just one thing after another with you. And, incidentally, you are a lousy cook, Daniel."

He swept the last spoonful into his mouth and swallowed hard. Too hot. Nasty aftertaste. He still felt sick. Didn't matter. It was now inside him and it would make him stronger. He dropped the spoon into the empty bowl triumphantly. "Actually, I'm a damned good cook, I just knew if I burnt enough packets of noodles you'd spring for take-out." He gave a little smile as he felt Jack unwinding a fraction. "And, of course, you wouldn't let me cook anything I like."

"Well call me old-fashioned but I didn't feel like spending six weeks eating food that went out with Tutankhamun. Good Americans eat pizza."

"Pizza's Italian."

"Whatever."

Daniel noticed Jack look at his watch and immediately the moment of lightness evaporated. "How long have Sam and Teal'c been gone?"

The way Jack's jaw tightened told him 'too long' better than a telegram. Daniel said, "We should go find…"

"They'll be fine."

There was a warning in Jack's tone, a hint of nerves a little closer to the surface than usual. Daniel recognized the situation: Jack being pulled in two different directions at once and not much enjoying the experience. Time to tread carefully or he was going to get his head bitten off. "Have you tried calling them?"

The look Jack gave him told him teaching his grandmother to suck eggs was not what Daniel should be doing right now. "I was only asking."

"Apparently the – " Jack waved a weary hand in the direction of the open doorway; a treated skin which seemed to constitute the front door flapped idly showing Daniel unfamiliar stars, "temple place blocks the signal."

"They could be in trouble. If I came with you, we could…"

"No."

No one could have been more emphatic. It was practically a bark. Daniel moistened his lips, unsure how to proceed but very aware that Jack needed careful handling right now. "I'm just saying – "

Jack turned and looked at him. "Daniel, either they're still working on the DHD – about which you and I know squat and so can't help them – or Onuris has turned up in one hell of a snit and they're keeping their heads down. Either way you and me waltzing in there isn't going to help them any."

"What if Onuris has come through the Stargate and caught them?"

"I don't think Carter and Teal'c would just stand there while the 'gate was lighting up, do you? Just, settle down. Try to get some rest. They'll be back."

Jack sounded so much more like himself that Daniel decided not to take offence at being spoken to as though he was six. In fact, if it would stop Jack putting out the welcome mat for Mister Doubt, Daniel wasn't going to object if the man ruffled his hair, called him 'Dannyboy' and asked him if his bootlaces were tied. For the first time it occurred to Daniel that perhaps Jack wasn't a natural optimist. Perhaps it was just something he put on to make the rest of them feel better. After all, it did make them feel better even if it only united them in rolling their eyes at each other about Jack's unrealistic optimism. And some of that positive thinking did tend to stick. Even when one part of Daniel's brain was telling him Jack had no more idea how they were going to get out of here than anyone else, the way the man always hit the ground running while insisting bad stuff was not going to happen to his team, even when it was already in the process of doing so, did usually make him feel more cheerful.

Daniel wondered how Jack was doing right now. He wasn't sure how long they'd been on the planet but he reckoned the bit at the beginning where Jack had been blowing on his fingers and getting very bored while Sam and Teal'c were examining the DHD would have been the highlight of his day. It had all been downhill from then on. Thanks to Daniel.

Daniel winced and Jack said, "You okay? No more flashbacks? Headaches? Weird hissing noises?"

"I'm fine, Jack. I'm just sorry I…"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"It's kind of a long list. How are you anyway?"

"Bored and irritable last time I checked."

"Well at least one of us is back to normal then."

Jack gave him an assessing look. "You know who'll be taking care of you next time you get injured and are signed out of the infirmary, don't you, Daniel?"

"Sam or Teal'c?" he said it hopefully.

"Me. It's my duty as your C.O. and I would never shrink from it."

"Well I'm not actually planning to get injured ever again but if I did I'm sure Teal'c wouldn't mind. And he says meditation is a very positive tool in physical recovery."

Jack was giving him his best level stare. "When you have a snake inside you it probably is. Normal people have to drink beer and watch hockey."

"I don't like beer. Or hockey."

"Time you learned to then, isn't it?"

"Teal'c's very patient. So is Sam."

"See and that's what makes me a much better person to take care of you when you get hurt. They'd be so damned nice to you you'd probably go out and hurt yourself again just to be taken care of that well. Now, six weeks at my place – "

"Uh, Jack, when you were convalescing, I stayed at your house, remember?"

"Six weeks at my place learning how to not just like hockey but answer long and difficult questions about it while being tested on your ability to tell imported beer brands apart in blind tastings will soon teach you the merits of taking much better care of yourself. You know I'm actually quite looking forward to it, so you want to get yourself hurt again: be my guest."

Daniel scratched his jaw. "If this is your incredibly subtle reverse psychology approach to persuading me not to get caught by Onuris when he arrives, it's working."

"That's what I like about people with PhDs: they're quick."

Before Daniel had even fully identified that quiet noise as the sound of approaching footsteps, Jack was on his feet, across the hut and pressed against the wall with his MP-5 raised. Daniel stayed where he was and hoped the sight of him would distract whoever was coming for long enough that Jack could knock them out before they killed him. When the hide door was pushed back, he tensed in readiness then felt relief flood through him as Teal'c stopped just outside of the door. Without moving, the Jaffa said, "O'Neill, it is I."

Jack relaxed, lowered his gun and exhaled. "You took your time."

Daniel gazed at them hopefully as Sam and Teal'c stepped into the hut but the sag of Sam's shoulders told him at a glance what the answer to Jack's question would be even before he'd asked it.

"So…?"

"No." Teal'c's disappointment was clear in his voice.

"Is Onuris…?"

"Yes."

"Hell!"

Jack said it so savagely Daniel realized his nerves were still pretty close to the surface after all. His fault. He wrapped his arms around his chest. This really was all his fault. Why hadn't he just done what Jack asked? Why hadn't he waited like Jack had told him to? Why the hell had he ever gone to that temple in the first place? He watched Jack take off his cap and run a hand through his hair, the silver streaks looking bronze in the firelight. Jack hadn't had any grey hairs when they'd first met. Daniel always tried to tell himself it was Charlie's death that had turned Jack grey but the uncomfortable fact remained Jack hadn't had a grey hair when he'd come back to Abydos either. Not one. He remembered when they'd been in the Tok'ra tunnels after escaping from Hathor. Makepeace had thrown Daniel down the corridor, then grabbed him by the jacket again and started hauling him after him while Daniel swore a protest as too much weight was put on his injured leg. Makepeace had looked at him and shaken his head, muttering, "Christ, no wonder O'Neill's going grey, Jackson. I'm just amazed they haven’t had to fit the guy for a goddamned pacemaker with you on his team."

Jack put his cap back on. "Okay, how many…?"

"A couple of hundred, sir. And there could be more arriving. He's obviously anticipating resistance and has come prepared for a fight."

Daniel thought of all those injured people in the temple. "Jack, shouldn't we – ?" He broke off as Jack glared at him, those expressive brown eyes saying 'Don't even think about it!' so sharply Daniel damned near jumped.

As Daniel swallowed the end of his sentence, Jack said crisply, "The word you didn't quite get to there had better have been 'hide', Daniel."

Daniel picked his words carefully: "I was just wondering what you thought we should do next."

"Wondering? Not suggesting?"

"Definitely just wondering."

Sam had been collecting up their packs ready for departure, but now she looked up from her place by Daniel's feet, brow creased with concern. "Sir, where's Harun?"

Jack glanced around and then shrugged. "I don't know – moving in a mysterious way, I expect, or no, that would be Daniel, wouldn't it? As he's on our side, I don't really care."

Daniel winced. Jack really hated situations he wasn't in control of and they always frayed his temper faster than a razorblade through silk. Which meant any minute now he was going to start biting off more heads than a fox in a hencoop.

Sam said steadily, " Is he on our side, sir?"

"Well he fed us and hid us and he seems very keen on Daniel being the Chosen One which I presume puts him on our side. I think I can go out on a limb and say the pissed off Goa'uld with a couple of hundred Jaffa at his heels is probably more of a threat right now."

Teal'c rumbled quietly, "These people want Daniel Jackson to deliver them from Onuris, O'Neill. They wish their prophecy to come to pass. They did not try to save Daniel Jackson from torture because according to their mythology, their Chosen One was tortured. Nor would they have averted his death because according to their mythology that was the task of his avatars. It may be that according to their mythology Daniel Jackson has to die to save them. In which case they will not try to avert that either and may even assist in his death."

Jack glared at the Jaffa. "Why?"

Sam sighed. "Teal'c's right, sir. The whole of the Christian faith is based on Jesus Christ dying to save Mankind. If he hadn't died then according to the New Testament we wouldn't have been saved. If someone had sent a copy of the Bible back to Ancient Judea via a time anomaly so the followers of Christ were waiting for him before he arrived, they still probably wouldn't have tried to save him because they needed him to die to save them. Judas would still have betrayed him because without the betrayal there could be no crucifixion, no resurrection, and effectively no salvation. You see where I'm going with this?"

"Not really, no."

Daniel looked up. "What Sam and Teal'c are saying, Jack, is that these people don't necessarily like me or want me – or my 'avatars' – to stay in one piece. They need certain events to take place to deliver them from Onuris but if nailing me to a cross is what it takes to get the job done, they'll probably be happy to supply the nails."

Sam nodded. "Exactly."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "That sucks."

"That's pretty much the way religions work, Jack. People don't worship deities without expecting to get something back: 'I'll slaughter this bull in your name if you give me a son.' It's always been a reciprocal deal."

"See I knew there was a good reason why I always hated the damned Church."

Daniel moistened his lips. "It helps a lot of people as well, Jack."

"Well it never did squat for me."

"He comes."

They all started and turned to see Harun standing just inside the doorway, licking his lips nervously. "The False god comes."

"So we heard." Jack picked up his pack and Daniel hastily got to his feet. Jack nodded to the man. "So long, thanks for the meal and the place to rest, we have to go hide the – Messiah here now."

"I will hide him."

"Uh – no."

"I know a place of safety."

"Sorry, call me Mister Particular but I really didn't like what your people did to Daniel last time we let him out to play by himself, so he stays with us from now on."

Harun hesitated. "What I must show him is only for the eyes of the Chosen One."

"See, when people say stuff like that it makes me even less inclined to want to let Daniel run off and play with them. And if you've got any puppies you want to show him you're out of luck there as well."

"Jack…" The protest was faint but Daniel did still feel it should be registered. He would put up with being treated like a child when Jack was in this mood because it was just part of what made Jack – Jack, but he did want to utter a small objection about it being done in front of other people.

Jack gave him one of those glares that told him he was brooking no argument right now but Daniel retaliated by giving him another reproachful look, this time at a sideways slant and from under his eyelashes. He didn't, as Janet Fraiser had once suggested, actually practice his reproachful look in front of the bathroom mirror, but he had learned how to adjust it for maximum effectiveness and this was full beam. Jack held out for almost two seconds before wilting, sighing, then saying more reasonably, "Look – Harun, I know you're only trying to help but it's important that we stay together, so either you show us somewhere we can all hide from Onuris or else thanks for everything but we're out of here."

Sam had the door-skin held back and was peering through the gap, MP-5 at the ready. "Sir, we need to go now."

Harun looked unhappy. "It is written that only the – "

Jack held up a warning finger. "Uh-huh – read my lips – don't care – we all go or no go. Take it or leave it because in ten seconds we're all out of here and you don't ever get to see your…Chosen One again." As the man hesitated Jack raised his eyebrows, "Come on, once in a lifetime chance to watch Dannyboy totally fail to turn water into wine, going, going, very nearly gone…"

"Jack…"

This time Jack was ready for him and just held up an admonishing finger without making eye contact. Daniel subsided and looked at Harun. The silence stretched. Jack shifted, moving his weight from his toes to his heels. Harun had one more second Daniel calculated and then Jack was going to be striding out of that doorway, taking the rest of them with him by sheer force of will. As Jack opened his mouth to say, "Time's up!" Harun said, "All of you then. Come with me. I will hide you from the False god."

***

The chill glitter of unfamiliar constellations as they struggled up the mountain path reminded Daniel he'd never got around to showing Kira the stars. She'd wanted to see more of their world and all he'd ever shown her was the inside of grey-painted rooms. Earth would probably always be a concrete bunker to her. But perhaps, even if he'd been able to take her up to the surface, there would have been an unwillingness to share something with her he'd never got the chance to show to Sha're. He liked to think that now but perhaps he was mistaken. Infatuations were like yesterday's fire. It was so hard to remember how that heat felt once it had burned out.

They'd reached an impasse. He'd wanted Jack to believe what Sha're had told him and Jack just couldn't. He'd watched Jack struggle with it, the way he'd struggled with so many things Daniel had told him over the years, and then, with a heart sinking faster than leadshot in a lake Daniel had realized that Jack just couldn't get his head around this one. He'd been so angry with him, so sick with disappointment that after all this time, Jack couldn't take his word for it. And, okay, it sounded crazy; and okay, he couldn't prove it, and okay it probably did seem like wish fulfillment but he knew that it was true; and it should have been enough for Jack that he believed it. After all this time, and all they'd been through together, it should have been enough.

It had made him brittle as papyrus and Kira had arrived in the middle of what he now looked back on as a terrible time; surrounded by people who were so desperate to help him through his grief and yet wouldn't give him the one thing he needed most. He'd felt like someone dying of thirst while his closest friends mopped his brow, held his hand, told him how sorry they were but wouldn't just reach across and hand him that damned glass of water on the windowsill. There had been a brief flame of happiness when Kira had kissed him. A flicker of something that wasn't just endless grief and frustration and anger and misery because how could Jack do this to him? How could he not believe him again ? And then it had all faded; the attraction to Kira had died away so fast as soon as he knew she was Linea, but at least it had given him something to do, trying to get the justice for Kira, who shouldn't be blamed for what the demon within her had made her do in another life, he hadn't managed to obtain for Sha're…

And then she'd gone and he was ashamed that he'd been relieved to see her go, because their flirtation now felt like a form of temporary insanity. But he'd been left there at the bottom of the ramp realizing that he couldn't go on like this; sulking like a furious teenager because no one would believe him. They were all he had and they cared about him and they were worried sick about him; and it wasn't as though they hadn't tried to believe him. So, he'd given in. At least, that was how he'd seen it at the time; a form of capitulation that nevertheless felt like the right thing to do. He'd stopped freezing Jack out – what had he been thinking, that if he shut the guy out for long enough it would somehow persuade him to believe what Daniel had told him in the infirmary? Apologized to Teal'c for being thoughtless in that meeting. Told Sam he was sorry he'd been acting so off with everyone. He had a vague recollection of being patted like he was an elderly spaniel that couldn't take more than the gentlest pressure; of being reassured that he hadn't behaved badly at all; but the sick feeling in his stomach had stayed; and he'd still been able to taste the bitterness of that disappointment because Jack couldn't just take his word for it, couldn't bring himself to trust his judgment, and obviously never, ever would.

And then the very next day Jack had walked into his office as he was looking through that box of Sha're's things and given him what he'd wanted. More than he'd ever hoped for. Just like that.

The weirdest thing was that he didn't think Jack had any idea how much it had meant to him. Jack had come to tell him that looking for Sha're's son was now an official SG-1 priority, that they were going to get out there and search for Kheb or die trying. Jack had probably thought that was the part Daniel was so pleased about; but good as that was, it was the moment when Jack had told him he believed in him that had filled that hole inside him.

Daniel stumbled on the path, momentarily disorientated by finding himself out in the starry coldness of an alien night when for a second there he'd thought he was back in the SGC. He was afraid he might have been literally sleepwalking for the last ten minutes. His concentration had certainly lapsed and it was so damned dark on this mountain he really couldn't afford to start wool-gathering. If he sprained an ankle he was going to slow everyone up. And besides, he was the one who knew about Onuris, the Egyptian god, even if Teal'c was the one who knew about Onuris the Goa'uld. He needed to get his brain working. He needed to think of a way to get them all out of the mess he had got them all into. If only he wasn't so damned tired…

Looking at the Colonel's face, Carter thought, you would never have guessed how far out of his depth he was. This was everything he hated most in one big untidy parcel: Goa'uld, Jaffa, religious fanaticism, no way off a hostile planet, and one of his team already having been injured once and still in serious peril. But other than the way he was treating Daniel as though he was six, he was hiding his anxieties quite efficiently. Although, of course, the way Daniel was just sighing resignedly and putting up with being treated as though he was six was a clear pointer to the Colonel's mood too. Carter knew her commanding officer pretty well after all this time but even she didn't pretend to know him as well as Daniel. And when Daniel decided that the Colonel needed to be cut this amount of slack, the man was clearly having an even worse time than she'd realized.

Both Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill had been adamant that Onuris would go to the temple. He might look for his rival later, but first he would go to the temple and see the destruction of his statue for himself, commune with his High Priests, and learn what had taken place. She hated to think what he would do to the wounded there and she knew Daniel shared her fears, but although they'd exchanged a glance, one look at the Colonel's face had made them both swallow what they'd been about to say.

She just hoped the woman with the sick baby had managed to get out of there in time. Her foot had been trapped under rubble which Carter had managed to clear. It was only after she'd got the woman free and bandaged her crushed foot that Carter had realized the woman was carrying an infant in her arms. Carter had held the child for a few minutes while the woman climbed awkwardly to her feet. The baby's skin had been so hot to the touch it had felt as though it was burning her hand. He'd coughed at her, too weak even to cry. She'd put her ear to his chest and heard the rasp of infection; his breathing so labored it seemed unlikely he would survive even a few hours. She'd remembered the illness the blonde woman had spoken of and reached for the antibiotics at once, saying, "He's sick. I have something that will help him – "

But the woman had snatched the infant back from her, saying, "No. It is not written."

"But I can help him." Carter held out the penicillin. "This should make his fever go away. He'll be able to breathe more easily. Please, let me – "

The woman had shaken her head, tears in her eyes as she said again, "It is not written."

As the baby coughed again, those harsh rasps sounding much too violent for such a tiny figure, Carter had felt the tears sting her own eyes. "Please, let me help him."

"No. No!" The woman had backed away. Carter hadn't been able to understand the expression on her face. Pleading mixed with guilt. As though the woman had done Carter a wrong instead of the other way around.

Thinking of all those wounded people, she opened her mouth to make a protest to the Colonel and then closed it again. The Colonel knew about the situation as well as she did. He'd made a decision. Called it as he saw it and as he was her CO and she was his 2IC, it was her job to back him up and not make his already incredibly difficult job any harder.

She could tell Daniel had also decided his first priority was not to make his best friend's task any more difficult than it already was, and she knew without needing to check with Teal'c and the Colonel they had long since decided their first priority was to keep Daniel safe and the hell away from Onuris, whatever it took. As far as Teal'c and the Colonel were concerned if Onuris killed the worshippers who had forsaken him then that was a tragedy, but one that wasn't going to influence their actions in any way whatsoever. She knew that just as she had the picture burned into her mind of those people dying under the falling rubble so the picture in Colonel O'Neill's mind was of those people craning their necks in apparent excitement to watch Daniel dragged in half-dead and damned near lost to them forever.

Harun had led them away from the dwellings now. The temple was still a looming shadow to the east, looking as though someone had torn a triangle from the sky leaving it empty of stars. Carter automatically checked to see how Daniel was doing and saw Teal'c also sending an assessing glance in his direction. The Colonel was determinedly not looking around, the way he did sometimes, as if he could make Daniel keep up and keep safe just by marching very straight and true to show him how to do it. Daniel was trying to watch his feet. He'd spent years looking up and tripping over fallen logs and tree roots but had recently discovered that looking down was also an option which meant he tripped less often but there was now a danger of him walking straight into whatever was in front of him. As the Colonel stopped to look back at the temple he became the thing right in front of Daniel.

Carter darted forward but was just too slow. She winced as Daniel murmured, "Sorry," and received a glare for his pains. He rubbed his forehead while looking at the Colonel dolefully. Carter would have been far more surprised if the Colonel had not then given him an apologetic grimace and murmured, "You okay?" Daniel nodded.

Carter noticed Harun moving ahead of them, a few paces was enough for him to melt into the darkness. "Sir…"

The Colonel caught up with the man in a few swift strides, his long legs as sure as Daniel's were uncoordinated. Daniel was alternating between looking down and looking up now, but between the darkness and his lack of glasses she wasn't sure he was doing anything more effective than making himself dizzy. She was aware of Teal'c behind them in the most dangerous position, footsteps near silent on the rocky path despite his size, ready to protect them from the staff weapon blasts of Onuris' Jaffa with his life if necessary. She wondered if he had any idea of the comfort they all took from his presence, how very alone they'd felt without him on Netu. She would have liked Teal'c to have heard the unflinching faith in the Colonel's voice when he'd said, 'Teal'c said he'd be there.' She knew with both Daniel and the Colonel their belief in Teal'c was instinctive rather than reasoned. Daniel just felt safer when Teal'c was around while the Colonel trusted his judgment in a way she doubted he'd ever trusted any other man's. His trust in Teal'c, after all, was not compromised by it constantly fighting his need to keep him safe as it was with Daniel.

She knew he trusted her as well; unlike Daniel she wasn't riddled with irrational insecurities about how others perceived her, and she knew the Colonel had unquestioning faith in her. Of course there were times when she would have exchanged all of that unquestioning faith for one intelligent question proving he had some idea what she was talking about, but she was resigned to the unquestioning faith now. She was very well aware that both Daniel and the Colonel had no idea of the limits of her expertise. In fact they didn't seem to think there were any limits to her expertise. If it was even vaguely connected with either astrophysics or the Stargate it was just expected that she would be able to figure it out somehow. And perhaps their certainty was contagious because she felt a terrible sense of failure that she'd been unable to get the DHD working. It was like the time in Antarctica where she'd had to watch the Colonel fading while she failed him. Daniel had saved them that time. They couldn't rely on him to do it this time. They had to keep him safe.

She felt fear tighten, the beginning of panic, and forced herself to breathe evenly. They would keep him safe. The Colonel would never let any harm come to Daniel if he could prevent it. There was something in Daniel that reminded the Colonel of the son he'd lost and there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep Daniel safe. Except she knew he would have been like that with his son, as well. That there was nothing he wouldn't have done to keep Charlie safe, and Charlie was still dead.

Carter reminded herself this had been a very long and very stressful day and she was tired. Her feet slipped on the shale and she automatically reached for her flashlight then withdrew her hand again. They couldn't risk any light, of course; they weren't struggling through the shadows like this for the fun of it, but it was an eerie feeling to be hunted. Daniel stumbled in front of her and she grimaced. He'd been looking paler and more exhausted since he woke up. The rest and food had probably helped a little but it was impossible to estimate how long it would take to recover from the kind of experience he'd undergone in the temple. She thought of Jolinar's stay in Sokar's palace and shuddered.

She'd spent the last two months reminding herself that Sokar was dead. The other Goa'uld might be evil but as far as she knew none of them reveled in the suffering of others as he had done. She still had nightmares about Netu; of the moment when she'd found her father, seen for herself what Sokar's torture had done to him when the memory of Jolinar's interrogation was still reverberating through her. She'd known that if they all died in that pit it would be because of her. Daniel and the Colonel had come on that trip for her sake, not to fight Sokar, or to assist the Tok'ra, but because her father was in need of rescuing. None of them had hesitated even for an instant. They had literally gone through hell for her. It was hard to know how to thank someone for that so she hadn't tried. She knew that in any case they would have told her that was what being part of a team was about; you helped each other, whatever that might take. And she would have done the same for any of them as unhesitatingly and as wholeheartedly, but it was still something she wasn't going to forget in a hurry.

She'd woken with a jolt on the tel'tak to hear the Colonel crying out his son's name, Daniel soothing him, murmuring words too low for her to hear before saying, "Go back to sleep, Jack. Don't dream…Don't dream..."

They all had too many nightmares now. She knew the Colonel dreamed about being a Goa'uld, the feeling as it slithered inside him, the fear of what he would do to them when it had blended with him. Teal'c had witnessed things even the Colonel had never had to contend with. She'd seen things herself that…

Carter grimaced. She hated it when that happened. Not that she hated the memories of Jolinar, they were part of her now; nothing like the way Teal'c felt about the larval Goa'uld within him. To be a Tok'ra, however temporarily, was to have glimpsed true symbiosis, something without which you were now not properly whole. She would have fought to hold onto Jolinar's memories, even the worst ones, but she needed to keep the distinction between the dead Tok'ra's mind and her own; the things that she had lived and seen and the things which had happened only to Jolinar. So Jolinar had seen things in Sokar's palace that were seared into her mind as well now. The Colonel had all those years of Black Ops, and Teal'c had all those years of serving Apophis, and she knew how it felt to have suffered torment at the hands of torturers she had never even met.

Perhaps because their minds seemed so full of dark matter they had to wall up or at least close themselves off from to exist day by day, they had all been united in trying to keep Daniel away from horror. She had been working with him for over a year before she realized there was dark matter in Daniel's mind too.

There was so much of the child he had once been left in Daniel that it was impossible not to care about what that child had undergone. She couldn't bear to think of an eight year-old Daniel watching his parents killed right in front of him. But she had stood by his shoulder and watched it happen. She knew what that little boy had witnessed in every detail. She knew how his parents' screams had sounded, how long the echoes of them had lasted. The exact noise those stones had made as they collapsed and crushed human bones. The way his father had tried to protect his mother. The way Daniel's mother's hair had been the exact same shade as her son's…

She sometimes wondered if the Colonel saw it as his task to try and undo all the wrongs done to Daniel by fate over the years: the dead wife, dead parents, the years of being fostered…

Carter couldn't help wondering what Daniel's foster parents had been like. He'd never spoken of them and she'd never liked to ask because it seemed such a conversational minefield. Why hadn't they adopted him? She vaguely remembered him telling her he had a grandfather alive somewhere with whom he'd had a disagreement and so didn't visit any more. Why hadn't his grandfather taken him in? Why had he let him be raised by strangers? Did Daniel have foster brothers or foster sisters or had he grown up an only child? His foster parents had clearly given him the space to develop that incredible mind, for which she could only be grateful to them, whoever they might be, but she couldn't help feeling there must have been a lot of things they'd left undone. Every time Daniel wrapped his arms around his chest, she couldn't help seeing a child no one was remembering to hug. And every time Daniel blamed himself for something that wasn't his fault she wondered who had taught him to be so insecure.

Even now, after three years, she wasn't certain he understood how much the Colonel respected his judgment. If Daniel had told the Colonel to go stick a fork in a light socket, the man would have done it at once on the understanding that Daniel must know what he was talking about. The only thing the Colonel didn't trust Daniel to do was look after himself properly, but she was never sure if Daniel had really grasped that distinction. If he'd ever realized that every time the Colonel hesitated before following through on some apparently irrational scheme of Daniel's, the hesitation was because the Colonel was having to factor in the missing part of Daniel's equation. The Colonel might not be able to understand the rest of what Daniel was telling him, but he didn't need to, he would just assume Daniel had everything right. The Colonel's job was to assess the danger to Daniel and if it was at an acceptable level, because he knew that would be the one thing Daniel had forgotten to take into account. But she knew that wasn't how Daniel read that inevitable hesitation. She'd see the hurt in Daniel's eyes, the light dim a little, the resignation or resentment show itself because as far as he was concerned this was just another proof Jack O'Neill didn't believe in him and never would. It apparently seemed natural to Daniel that people whose opinion he respected, and whose respect he needed, would not believe in him, trust him, or have any faith in his judgment.

She remembered how Daniel had blamed himself for what they'd then thought was his schizophrenia. Apologizing for being such a 'headcase'. She'd nearly started crying right there and then because it was so unfair that Daniel should do this to himself but there didn't seem any way to undo whatever it was that caused it. She'd never quite been able to work out how someone who could make so many people do what he wanted just because he wanted it could still perceive himself as fundamentally unlovable.

Because the Colonel had access to Daniel's personal files while she didn't she'd always been wary of discussing Daniel with him in case it looked as though she was fishing for information. But once after Daniel misinterpreted something the Colonel had said, the hurt look had come into his eyes and he'd retreated, automatically wrapping his arms around his chest again, she couldn't resist murmuring to the Colonel, "You know, sometimes, when you see how Daniel's turned out, it really makes you want to hit someone, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," the Colonel was looking at the younger man in exasperation, "usually Daniel." As he marched towards the linguist she could hear him saying, "Daniel I am not saying we're not going to P3Xwhatever the hell it was, I'm just saying that some more information would be nice. And I am thrilled that the Huttites –

"Hittites."

"Whatever – seem to have built an interesting pyramid – "

"Citadel."

"Whatever – there, but that doesn't mean we should just go waltzing in there without…"

Daniel and the Colonel had been having variations on that argument for three years now, both of them coming from the position that the other one was willfully misunderstanding them for no good reason either of them could think of. She suspected it might be an irreconcilable difference they were all just going to have to live with.

As she stumbled on the shale she felt a supporting hand close on her elbow and looked around in surprise. As always it was comforting to see Teal'c. She sometimes wondered if Teal'c had anything as comforting in his life as the rest of them found him . He said quietly, "You are fatigued, Major Carter."

"It's been a long day, Teal'c."

"And it is not yet over."

She glanced up at Daniel and saw he was proceeding with dogged determination, head down, feet thumping heavily on the path, the way children walked when they were very tired and should have been in bed an hour ago. And he'd had two hours more sleep than the rest of them. She had a feeling this was going to be a long night as well.

"We are here." Harun's voice was soft in the stillness.

She saw the shadow that was the Colonel turn and look round before saying pointedly: "We're halfway up a mountain in the middle of what looks suspiciously like nowhere to me."

"Jack…" It was a muted protest from Daniel. A whole speech about respecting other people's cultures and customs, not to mention showing some manners, compressed into one weary murmur.

"Daniel." The Colonel's admonishing tone took the place of a long retort about there being a time and a place for respecting other people's cultures, and this definitely not being it. The Colonel looked interrogatively at their guide. "Harun?"

"This way." Harun walked into what appeared to be the mountain until Carter realized that he had ducked behind an overhang of rock and gone into a crevice. She waited for the Colonel to follow him and heard the man say quietly, "Watch your head, Daniel," closely followed by a sigh of resignation from Daniel, followed even more closely by a bumping sound and a stifled exclamation of pain. She ducked under the overhang and winced from the sudden flare of light as Harun held up a burning torch. The Colonel was saying, "I told you to watch your head."

Daniel rubbed his forehead and gave his CO another reproachful look. "I did."

The Colonel shook his head then turned to her and Teal'c, beckoning them on in. "Apparently these caves go a long way back into the hills and provide plenty of places to hide but if anyone's claustrophobic, now might be a good time to mention it." He looked around them all and then turned back to Daniel. "Daniel…?"

Daniel blinked at him mildly. "Jack…?"

"Didn't you once tell me all archaeologists are claustrophobic?"

"No, I once told you claustrophobia was an occupational hazard. A lot of archaeologists have had isolated panic attacks when finding themselves at the end of a long tunnel in a windowless burial chamber under several thousand tons of stone, that doesn't mean we're all claustrophobics, it just means we more regularly find ourselves in places where claustrophobia is a – reasonable response to the situation."

"Well does it seem like a reasonable response to you right now?"

Daniel moistened his lips and Carter wondered how much patience Daniel had packed for this trip and how much he'd used up so far. He said conversationally, "Actually, Jack, moving after the only guy who knows his way through the catacombs seems like a reasonable response to me right now."

The Colonel gave Daniel a quelling glance but she noticed he also took off after Harun at a fair pace, allowing Daniel to slip back into step behind him. Behind her the beam from Teal'c's flashlight was throwing a bluish white patina across the dark rock. She pulled out her own flashlight and shone it onto the other side of the cavern. She couldn't recognize the rock at a glance, it was dark but not the glassy black of obsidian, the wrong texture for granite. There were red veins in it here and there, iron deposits perhaps, or some chemical they hadn't come across before. This was a different stone from that of the temple walls. She wondered if it was local. If she wanted to take Daniel's mind off things later, she would ask him about the likelihood of the stone having been imported specially for the temple's construction so he could give her one of his lectures about Common Myths About The Pyramids and Why They're All Wrong.

Daniel had told her more than once that contrary to popular misconception most of the pyramids had been built from local stone by local workforces, and Orion had played no part in their placement. Apart from the ones built by the Goa'uld, of course, which were effectively landing sites for alien spaceships.

General Hammond wasn't usually any better than the Colonel at saying no to Daniel but he'd been very adamant from the beginning that Daniel could not go and look at the pyramids again in light of their new information about the Goa'uld. The general had insisted the sight of an archaeologist who had previously published theories about the pyramids being the proof of alien intervention in the cross-pollination of ancient cultures, being accompanied by US Air Force personnel to the pyramids at Giza would be just the kind of bait no self-respecting investigative reporter could resist. So Daniel was pretty much banned from visiting Egypt for the moment, even with a false passport, a false moustache, and a false reason for being there, and he complained about it regularly. Usually, Carter had noticed with some amusement, when he was angling for something else. So, as Daniel, often mentioned, he couldn't prove which pyramids had been built by the Goa'uld and which had been constructed later as tributes to those earlier monuments, but he was pretty certain he was right about which was which and she had no reason to doubt him. But, the non-Goa'uld constructed pyramids had been made from local stone, Daniel insisted, and there was nothing very complicated about where they had been built or why. There were sound geological reasons for where they were to do with the ground being able to bear the weight of so much stone and the pyramids having a clear line of sight to the north.

He'd also told her most large monuments were built from local materials and the reason why there were no rock quarries near most of the pyramid sites was because they had been quarried out building the pyramids and anyone who said otherwise was an ass. For someone who had been laughed out of academia for his own way-out theories, Daniel was surprisingly intolerant of other people's. She had learned to like his contradictions.

She could hear the sound of water dripping but there weren't any stalactites or stalagmites so clearly not limestone –

"Major Carter, it appears to be growing warmer."

She turned to look at the Jaffa. "If it’s the same as on Earth it should be about ten degrees, Teal'c. Caves are places with a very regular temperature." She put a hand up to her throat as she spoke. It was feeling sore, a burning sensation in the back of it. Probably from all that dust they'd been inhaling in the temple.

Teal'c leant across and ran his finger up the wall then licked it speculatively. "And the water supply appears to be fresh and unpolluted."

They exchanged a glance, neither one of them needing to state aloud the obvious truth that they might be able to wait out Onuris' Jaffa in these caves, retreating further to keep out of their reach and yet be able to remain reasonably warm and have access to clean water. Food would be the only problem but she and Teal'c had salvaged what they could from the MALP in the way of MREs and they could ration themselves.

Carter became aware that Daniel was talking up ahead of them. He seemed to be telling the Colonel about the early Christians building the catacombs so as to have somewhere to bury their dead without attracting the attention of their Roman oppressors. She doubted the Colonel was finding much to interest him in the recital but that had never been known to stop Daniel yet. She and Teal'c exchanged another glance, of amusement this time, and moved after the others.

"…Yes that's fascinating, Daniel, but probably not what we need to be focusing on right now. Perhaps a little less emphasis on the history lesson and a little more emphasis on not getting dead might be appropriate here?"

Carter hoped Daniel whammied the Colonel with one of his best reproachful looks because she really felt he deserved one right now. Youch! She winced in sympathy all the same. That was a reproachful look with teeth. The Colonel grimaced. "I'm not saying what you're telling me isn't interesting, Daniel, I'm just – questioning its relevance to our current situation."

"There's a popular misconception the Christians actually lived in the catacombs – they didn't. The catacombs were a…a necropolis, not a hiding place; it would have been like camping out in a crypt; but the Christians did spend long periods of time down there painting on the walls and burying their dead. There were thousands and thousands of bodies down there, miles of tunnels. That's a lot of excavation, a lot of people digging, a lot of funeral services, all taking place under the noses of the Romans without them even noticing, Jack, even though the Romans persecuted the Christians with as much hostility as Onuris would probably like to persecute us."

And so now at least three of them were all on the same page even if they had come at it from different directions. That was another thing she had learned to like about Daniel, the way he could surprise her even after all this time. Just when she was convinced he'd completely what the Colonel called 'wandered off to la-la land' he'd come up with the solution to a problem she hadn't even known he was aware of, or would make a suggestion that made perfect sense and none of the rest of them had thought of.

"I got you," the Colonel looked around at their surroundings with more interest. "Well I suppose a lick of paint, some drapes…"

"This way."

They all turned to see Harun beckoning them forward eagerly. He pointed to an arched opening in the wall and said, "This is the Cavern of the Tablet. This is what I must show the Chosen One."

***

O'Neill had never been happy around people whose mindset he couldn't understand. And religious fanatics definitely came under the category of people he could not relate to. For instance, he'd never quite been able to work out why, when most deities were supposed to be benevolent and merciful, the people who worshipped them spent so much of their time torturing and killing each other.

Of course, since coming across the Goa'uld, he'd had a whole new outlook on gods. As half the ones that had ever been worshipped on Earth now seemed to have been aliens only pretending to be gods he wasn't holding out a lot of hope for the others. While Kinsey's God Will Protect America Come What May attitude hadn't made him feel that fond even of 'God' God, never mind the ones that other cultures worshipped. He'd always felt his grandmother's Catholicism was just a habit she'd fallen into, a way of not having to think about anything too hard because some priest would do it for her; a means not to have to ever formulate her own opinion about anything because why bother when someone in a cassock could tell you what you were meant to be thinking? He knew it was in him to be like that too – hell he was in the forces, wasn't he? But he liked to think he'd got to be a Colonel in the US Air Force, not to mention team leader of SG-1, because of the initiative he'd shown rather than because he'd inherited his grandmother's ability to follow orders.

All the same, he knew his Grandmother's religion was one of the reasons he liked having Daniel around. Daniel made him think even when he didn't want to; Daniel made him question things he might otherwise not have thought about. He needed someone like Daniel to keep him asking those questions, thinking about those issues; annoying though it could be, it was also healthy and necessary. There were times when you were the man with his finger on the trigger, when you needed not to be thinking. Not about how it felt to be the enemy, or the rights and wrongs of the conflict you'd signed up for, or the moral implications of the action you were about to take; but there still always had to be a voice inside you somewhere reminding you there were lines you wouldn't cross come what may. Or at least – he had to be honest here, because those lines didn't run straight as train tracks your whole life in the services, you did things when you were twenty-eight you couldn't have done when you were eighteen and then found at thirty-eight you couldn't do again and wondered how you ever could – when you did cross them, there was a voice reminding you of the fact, making you think about what you'd done so hard you wouldn't take that step again if the same set of circumstances came up. You learned from your mistakes, yes, but sometimes other people died because of them, so the fewer mistakes you made the better. And sometimes the more questions you asked the better as well. Otherwise, you could find yourself on the wrong side in another My Lai.

Perhaps other people had gods they could look to for guidance when tricky situations came up, but he'd never been a believer and so that route had always been denied to him. He'd spent years painfully carving out a moral code for himself he could live with and still get the job done, but it was ragged in places and he suspected some of his ethics had become a little blunted over time. That was why he needed Daniel, Teal'c, and Carter to sharpen them up for him. He believed in his companions' moral code in a way he'd never been able to believe in a lot of Latin words he didn't understand, the censor swinging slowly from side to side leaving its incense trail, and all those different colored vestments for different-colored prayers. The Catholic Church – hell, any church – had always been too intangible for him.

Morality was what Teal'c had done, taken a stand for no reason other than because he thought it was right. Given up a position of comparative wealth and power, given up his wife and son, given up everything, fired on men he'd trained, earned the undying enmity of the System Lords, because he wasn't prepared to kill a couple of hundred unarmed strangers even though his god had told him to. Morality was Carter going back down into a concrete bunker to be with that little girl who had a bomb inside her so the kid wouldn't die alone. Morality was Daniel giving last rites to Apophis' dying host even though this was the face and the body of the Goa'uld who had stolen and raped and impregnated Daniel's wife. That was a moral code he could recognize and be impressed by. That was a moral code that made people's lives better. That was a moral code you could set your watch by and know it was keeping perfect time.

What Harun was displaying though, was just faith.

O'Neill could recognize faith as well. That was also something he had in his teammates. He didn't doubt for a minute if there was anything humanly possible any one of the others could do to keep him and each other alive, they would do it. If Daniel said he could translate something, O'Neill didn't experience even a millisecond of doubt he could translate it. If a Stargate didn't work, Carter could make it work. If Teal'c said he could fly a ship he'd never so much as seen before, then Teal'c could fly it. That was what he called faith. It was not wasting your time having doubts about things you had no reason to doubt to leave yourself plenty of energy for the doubting you ought to be doing. And that brought him straight back to those questions he liked people to keep asking. Liked Daniel to keep asking in particular even when it drove him nuts.

That was also why he needed Daniel to remain untouched enough by the shittier things of life that the man still had enough inner fire left to power a conscience. The day Daniel could walk through a battlefield without flinching would be the day O'Neill knew he'd done something indefensible, allowed something to happen he should have prevented, and in the process lost something that would cost not just Daniel, but everyone in the end. From the first day he'd met him, he'd decided the world needed people like Daniel even more than it needed people like him. And when he thought about some of the things he'd done over the years it seemed as though people like him were the reason why the world needed people like Daniel. But he had been trying very hard for a long time now not to be part of the problem and to at least try to be part of the solution, and ever since he'd commanded SG-1 he'd felt like he was succeeding. Perhaps for the first time in what was a pretty long career now, he felt the US Military was allowing him to do some good for the whole planet rather than just the bit of it that spoke English and ate apple pie.

So he could understand someone believing in Daniel – he believed in Daniel himself. And he could understand someone having faith in Daniel – he had faith in Daniel himself. But he had belief and faith in Daniel because he knew the guy and had been working with him for the past three years; had seen him tested and knew he always came up true. Harun didn't know squat about Daniel except he matched the requirements of some made-up deity the man was convinced would save him and his people from a different false god. That wasn't a faith or a belief O'Neill considered healthy. In fact he thought it was downright dangerous. Especially for Daniel.

Sighing, he looked around at their surroundings. The cavern Harun had been so eager to show them was huge. Twice the size of the 'gateroom, the single arched entrance in the long south wall only added to the cathedral feel of the place. It was made from some dark rock streaked with dull red powder, like the walls had old wounds that hadn't healed yet. Their voices echoed in here even more than the other caves although Harun's was hushed with reverence as he pulled aside a cloth to reveal the tablet set into the wall. Daniel was asking questions again. The guy never stopped asking questions. His voice was quiet and soothing but the echoes picked it up and turned it ghostly. Three caverns away it probably sounded like Daniel was already dead.

O'Neill glanced around the cavern again; the floor looked liquid, a black sea of stone; the type of floor that magnified every sound and fed it to the echoes. You'd be able to hear the clunk-clunk-clunk of metalshod Jaffa from way off, certainly, but they wouldn't be able to make an exactly silent escape themselves. Water trickling down one wall. Good if you were thirsty, less good if you didn't want to get pneumonia. He was never sure if Daniel's allergies made him a more likely candidate for chest infections than the rest of them but it seemed likely. And shock always lowered the immune system, making Daniel more susceptible to illnesses right now anyway. Pneumonia was probably what would do for most of the wounded they'd left behind in the temple. There were worse ways to go. Worse way for strangers to go anyway, a friend going that way was still going to hurt like hell.

And yes, he felt bad about those people, of course he did. Most of them were probably dead by now and it was only Daniel's current crushing sense of guilt that had stopped the guy insisting they go back there and give themselves up to save them. That was why O'Neill had jumped on him straight away before he could voice the suggestion. Sometimes that was all you could do with Daniel; the guy had an annoying habit of being right all the time, and anyway he was a lot smarter than O'Neill would ever be so he couldn't really argue with him, but sometimes he could get in first and shut him up in time. He never felt good about doing that, it was too much like kicking a puppy, but sometimes it was the only route to take. And okay, those people were probably being killed by Onuris round about now and he was sorry for that, and Daniel would be feeling lousy about it, so would Carter; he wasn't feeling too happy about it himself; but Daniel and Carter were still alive and not yet prisoners of Onuris. At the moment his main priority was keeping them that way.

O'Neill put a hand to the back of his neck and tried to crick his head into a position where it didn't send an ache all the way down his spine. He hated this damned cold, miserable, mist-drenched planet. He hated these damned caves and he particularly hated this damned cavern, but he still figured he'd better go over there and find out what Daniel and Harun were talking about.

The tablet was also black and shiny with lots of raised lettering he couldn't understand. A weird mixture of hieroglyph variants and something called cuneiform which apparently even Daniel was having a little trouble deciphering. He didn't know whether to be glad or sorry Daniel's experience in the temple had still left him with an insatiable curiosity for new variations on old languages. With Harun's torch sending shadows of flame across the inscription and Carter and Teal'c both adding circles of blue white light from their flashlights, Daniel was running his fingers across the glyphs like a blind man reading Braille, murmuring to himself as he got ready to give them the news from the faithful.

O'Neill shouldered his MP-5. "What does it say? Have you got it figured out yet?"

Daniel didn't take his gaze from the lettering. "More or less but there are still a lot of words I don't know. Basically it seems to be saying: 'The Chosen One came disguised as a' – I'm not sure about this – 'defenseless?' No, a 'frail mortal to the temple of the False god, without any appearance of – "

" 'Even basic competence'?" O'Neill suggested.

" '…his divinity' – thank you, Jack -  'to test the faith of the priests. But the priests knew him not and followed the tenets of the False god. They seized the Chosen One and took him to the place of '– something like - 'the place of torment. The Chosen One feigned great suffering that he might reach their hearts and save them from the tenets of the False god, yet this moved them not and still they did the False god's will. They tortured the Chosen One until his mind appeared to snap asunder like a rotten bough, and then they dragged him to the place where the False god stood in' – what? Oh I get it - ' stood in stone', - I think they mean where the statue of the False god stood – 'there to sacrifice him to the Cruel One. And there gathered those who would see the Chosen One put to death, those whose eyes were blind to his – nefrew?'" Daniel frowned as he tried to work out the context and then blushed. "Um – to his um – "

O'Neill shook his head. "It says 'beauty' doesn't it? God, I hate this planet."

Carter said soothingly, "Go on, Daniel, this is fascinating. This is exactly what happened."

After a quick glance at O'Neill, Daniel continued, "' Yet, with the Chosen One came his…tewet…um, his avatars, which numbered three; and the first was more beautiful than the moon; the second, more terrible than the sun; the third, more cunning than the wolf that hunts in winter.' " Daniel looked over his shoulder. "I guess that's the three of you."

"Ya think?"

" 'The first was Compassion; the second Wrath; the third Guile. Wrath struck down the False god with his staff of fire and the False god did split asunder like' – something or other, not sure about that word – 'and the temple fell with a sound like thunder and first among the priests was he whom history shall despise for all eternity; and he the False god crushed. And terrible were the woes and lamentations of those who had come to watch the Chosen One put to death, and their blood did overflow like the river after rain, and their bones were turned to powder, and their sufferings terrible to behold. Yet all this did they deserve for they would have watched the Chosen One put to death and lifted not a hand to help him.' " Daniel looked up with a frown. "This is a very judgmental text for what's supposed to be a benevolent deity."

"Oh just get on with it, Daniel."

"Please continue, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel moistened his lips. "Okay. Right. 'And the avatars were filled with sorrow, for the Chosen One appeared as one separated' – something like - 'separated from himself for all eternity. And Compassion wept tears that turned to sapphires, and Wrath wept tears that turned to rubies, and Guile wept tears that became as diamonds upon the ground to think that the Chosen One was lost to them. Yet the Chosen One had only feigned his' – don't know this word but in the context think it must be something like 'condition…feigned his condition… And his avatars did raise him up again with their love, and he was untouched, for he was the Chosen One whom no man can injure.' Wouldn't it be nice if that were true?"

"Daniel."

" '…And when the people saw the image of their False god split asunder they were loud in their lamentations and greatly feared the coming of the False god to wreak his vengeance upon them. They gathered at the Shenu…' Shenu…? Oh, 'Ring of Eternity' – that must be the Stargate – 'but lo the Chosen One walked amongst them all unscathed, and spoke to them in' – not riddles, metaphors, something like that – "

" 'Parables'?" Carter suggested.

Daniel winced. "Let's stick with metaphors. '…spoke to them in metaphors that their weak minds could not yet grasp.' "

"I can't believe that every half-baked piece of nonsense Daniel's come out with on this stupid planet is going to be commemorated for all eternity on a…tablet thing."

"Already is commemorated for all eternity, sir," Carter reminded him. "I think there's definitely been some kind of rip in the space time continuum at some point in this planet's history."

Daniel peered myopically at the inscription. " 'But then the Chosen One and his disciples' – I'm just reading what it says here, I didn't write this stuff – '…his disciples did disagree, for Wrath and Guile were angered with those who had worshipped the False god, and Guile proclaimed that they should be left to…' can't work this out at all, but it seems to be something like '…stew in their own blood'."

"I never said that," O'Neill protested.

" 'But the Chosen One won them to his cause with his great –' look let's just skip along here, shall we? - '…and Wrath laid down his staff of fire and raised the great stone from off the body of the hem-netjer-tepey – hem-netjer-tepey? Oh right, I keep forgetting, that's the High Priest – they didn't have a religious structure on Abydos that involved an actual hierarchy which I also found very…Okay, Jack, I'm reading it: '…raised the great stone from the body of the High Priest though no man of mortal flesh could lift it, and the Chosen One did lay hands upon the priest who would have killed him and…' Oh great, and now I'm raising people from the dead!"

"There's just no end to your talents, is there, Dannyboy?"

"Look, this is insane," Daniel turned to Harun. "The only people who performed a miracle here were my friends. The only reason I survived this Shokmar thing was because they saved me. They are all much greater than I  – "

Harun beamed and pointed to a section of the text that came much lower down. " 'And then spake the Chosen One and he told the sinners of the False god that the magic lay all with his avatars for it was they who had saved him from the horror of Shokmar, and it was they who were most worthy of praise.' "

"Do the words 'self-fulfilling prophecy' keep coming to anybody else's mind?" O'Neill enquired.

Daniel turned to Carter. "Sam, what the hell's going on here?"

"I think we're dealing with a time anomaly here. Someone from the future must have traveled back to the past, taking these tablets with them. They described a past event which in the deeper past appeared to be a prophecy."

"Except this isn't a past event, it's a present one, and it's happening now, and it is really freaking me out." Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "I don't think I should translate any more of this."

"I agree," Carter said thoughtfully. "If we read on we're going to try and change events that could be said to have already taken place."

There was a cold draught coming in through the arched doorway. O'Neill waved a hand at the back of his neck, as though the breeze was a bat he could frighten away. He hated the way everyone's words sounded so thin and hollow in here and raised his voice to try to foil the whispering echoes. "Except they haven't taken place, Major, and if one of the things recorded here is us all getting killed I'd really like to avoid it."

"The point is, sir, that we can't avoid it. It's already happened."

O'Neill looked down at himself pointedly. "Not to me."

"Major Carter is right," Teal'c put in thoughtfully. "It is clear from these writings that the people of this planet threw off the shackles of their slavery to the Goa'uld only because of our coming to this world. If we attempt to alter events in any way, we may undo the good we could be said to have already done: Onuris may then triumph and these people remain his worshippers."

"I can live with that." O'Neill looked around at the others. "Hell of a lot of worlds out there. Seems kind of greedy not to let the Goa'uld have some of them. Is there anyone here who can't live with that?"

"Jack," Daniel sighed. "I think we're in the hands of fate here and Sam's right, we should stop reading what happens and just – "

And he could see where this was going and no way was he allowing it to go there. Time to start spelling things out for people. "And just what, Daniel? In case you've forgotten, you're not actually a god, you're an archaeologist-slash-anthropologist-slash-Egyptologist-slash linguist-slash- major -pain in the butt who has already been caught and tortured once in the – " O'Neill checked his watch, "let me see – twenty hours we have been on this miserable planet. And if Onuris catches us he's going to kill all of us but he'll probably kill you in a particularly messy and spectacular fashion because you're now his main rival in the deity stakes. Now, although I'm starting to think that wouldn't even be such a bad thing, there's just this tiny lingering part of me that would rather not have to watch you get dismembered or buried alive or fed to wild dogs or whatever."

Daniel shrugged and held up a hand to the tablet. "You want to read this by yourself, go right ahead, but I'm not translating any more of it."

"Daniel, do you have any idea how close I am to hitting you right now?"

Teal'c took Daniel by the arm and moved him back so that the Jaffa was between Daniel and O'Neill. Daniel said reassuringly, "It's okay, Teal'c, Jack's joking."

O'Neill and Teal'c exchanged a look that was entirely sympathetic. O'Neill said, "Keep doing what you're doing, Teal'c."

Daniel said soothingly, "Jack, don't get mad."

"Too late, I already did."

Looking at Jack, Daniel could see he wasn't kidding. Jack was mad as hell with him. "I just don't want us to do the wrong thing."

"Well you know what I want, Daniel? I want to get my team off this planet alive and, if possible, unhurt. Now, I expect the Goa'uld to make that task harder, what I don't expect is for the people whose lives I am trying to save to make that task harder. And right now I'm looking at you."

"Sir, I'm with Daniel on this. I don't think we can read what happened without changing past and future events."

Daniel appreciated Sam distracting the man because Jack looked exactly like someone who wanted to swat him hard around the back of the head, but all the same he thought she was waving a red flag at a bull right now.

Jack said tautly, "Major, I don't care if we change past and future events on a planet we're never going to visit again. This isn't Earth. This isn't us going back and ending up marrying our own grandmothers or whatever or stopping ourselves being born. This is a different world with a belief system that is based on two lies. I don't see their lives are so damned wonderful it makes any difference if their past or future gets changed anyway. And if this – " he waved a hand at the black tablet, "writing stuff tells us what happened to the 'Chosen One' and his little band of angels, and gives us the jump on Onuris I think it's a legitimate tactical advantage we ought to make use of."

Daniel decided there was a time to be conciliatory and there was a time to put his foot down. They could stay here and argue until the sun went supernova, he was not changing these people's history just to get them out of a tight situation. Sam knew more about this kind of thing than they did and she agreed with him, and so did Teal'c, that meant a majority of three to one in favor of him being right. Jack was trying to bully him into doing something they both knew to be wrong and he was damned if he was going to do it. Wrapping his arms around his chest, Daniel said firmly, "I'm not translating it."

He'd never really grasped how swift Teal'c's reflexes were, until the Jaffa shoved him behind him even faster than Jack could grab him. When he recovered his breath, Teal'c had placed a restraining hand on Jack's chest and was holding him at arm's length, the two men looking at each other without hostility. Jack said conversationally, "I have to hit Daniel, Teal'c. If I don't the top of my head is going to explode. There's going to be grey matter sprayed all over this damned cavern."

"Striking Daniel Jackson will not help, O'Neill."

"It'll make me feel a hell of a lot better."

"Even harming Daniel Jackson severely will not persuade him to translate the tablet for you."

Daniel murmured, "Um – probably better not to be put that idea in Jack's head right now, Teal'c."

Teal'c continued imperturbably, "And if Onuris' Jaffa pursue us, our chances of escape would be much higher if we were all uninjured."

Not even attempting to pretend he wasn't hiding behind the Jaffa right now, Daniel nodded. "That's a good argument, Teal'c, stick with that one."

"Sir, this really isn't achieving anything." Sam was checking her MP-5 as she spoke, jiggling a reload mechanism that was threatening to stick. "Beating up Daniel isn't going to help us get off this planet."

"No, but it would make me feel really good right now." Jack gave Daniel a blood-freezing glare but did back up. "Okay, I won't hurt him this minute but if we should ever get back to base he's dead meat."

Daniel winced at the look in his eyes – Jack really wasn't kidding on this. "Well given how remote the chances of us getting back to base look at the moment, I guess I can live with that." Deciding he really should stop hiding behind Teal'c now, he took a tentative step forward. When Jack didn't hit him, he shuffled a bit further away from Teal'c's protection.

Teal'c said calmly, "If we successfully return to base, O'Neill, Daniel Jackson will no longer be in danger from Onuris and you will consequently no longer be angry with him."

Jack held up a warning finger to the Jaffa. "You know your problem, Teal'c? You talk too much." He turned on Daniel and Daniel couldn't help blanching a little from the burn in those brown eyes. Whatever Teal'c might say, Jack was not going to get over this in a hurry. Jack said with deceptive calm, "So, Daniel, would you like to tell us why this is not a good place to spend the rest of the night?"

For a minute Daniel just stared at him open-mouthed because Jack never did this. He never asked him military-type questions and expected to get a real answer. He had never once demanded that Daniel know things soldiers knew. He just expected him to know the things an archaeologist would know. It was one of Jack's more lovable traits. Was Jack going to ask him to take apart an MP-5, clean it, and put it back together again, or set a line of those – explosive thingies Sam knew how to play around with? What the hell was this about anyway?

As Jack continued to stare at him, unblinking and unrelenting, Daniel realized what this was about. This was a reminder Jack did the military stuff and Daniel didn't; and right now Daniel's pesky ethics were interfering with Jack's ability to keep them all safe. Which was no doubt why he was reminding Daniel how, despite all his undoubted intelligence, Daniel knew zip about military strategy. Well, very subtle, Jack, and didn't that tell him, but he still wasn't translating the damned tablet. So there.

"Daniel…?" Jack had his best I-can-wait-all-night expression on and Daniel supposed he should be grateful Jack had never done this to him before. He could have had three years of Jack saying: And what's this weapon called, Daniel? And how does that one work? Just a little reminder of what kind of a C.O. Jack could have been. And yes, Daniel was very appreciative of Jack never having treated him like this, and although he'd never stated it directly, he'd thought he'd made it pretty damned obvious from the way he put up with all Jack's crap when the man was being crabby for no apparent reason. Or all those times in the past when Jack had treated him like he was a difficult child who needed to be humored. Not to mention the way Daniel damned near had a coronary every time Jack got injured. But no, apparently not. Apparently Jack was feeling misunderstood and unappreciated today and also seemed a hair away from pointing out that he was a Colonel in the Goddamned United States Air Force and it would make a nice change if the people Under His Command occasionally did what they were Damned Well Told.

Playing along with Jack's bruised ego seemed the best way of averting both the speech and the temper tantrum that seemed to be looming. Sighing, Daniel looked around at the cavern. It was huge, echoing, imposing and made him think of the Maya his grandfather had studied in Belize. Made him remember how it was to be a child being told scary stories by Nick while his mother said indulgently, "Really, Dad, don't you think Danny's a little young to hear…"

His parents had argued after every trip to Nick's house. And it was true he'd always had nightmares but he'd still been eager to go back. Nick had told him the Maya believed the caves were places were evil spirits lived, where a man would be tested by demons if he dared to venture into the darkness. All those miles and miles of caves, rainwater sculpturing the limestone into folds of rock that looked like melted candle wax. Nick had described it to him so many times. The subterranean pools. The bats. How he'd had to swim through the darkness in places. How he'd found abandoned cooking pots that made it seem as though the Maya had left only days ago. And then as he went deeper and deeper into the caves, there had been other proofs of darker rituals. An obsidian knife. A human skull. And finally the calcified skeleton of a teenage girl who'd been ritually sacrificed by Mayan priests…

Hearing the sound of Jack's foot tapping impatiently, Daniel collected his thoughts. A lecture on the ancient Maya probably wasn't what Jack was looking for right now. Okay. Concentrate on this cavern and why it wouldn't be a good place to stay the night. Well there were striations on the walls, evidence of some iron or copper deposits in the rock. And it was quite warm. And there was water, which seemed to be fresh. And…nothing was really coming to mind and Jack was getting seriously irritable now. He really didn't want to make Jack madder than he was already but all he could think of was reasons why this would be a good place to spend the night. He was suddenly aware of Sam behind him, murmuring: "Only one entrance."

Damn, he'd known that, Jack just had him flummoxed. Daniel said quickly, "It's a trap. Only the one way in or out. So, we probably shouldn't stay here much longer…?"

"Very good." Jack shot Sam a suspicious glance but Daniel tried to look as innocent as possible and he knew Sam would be keeping her face carefully unreadable as well.

Sam said, "Daniel's right, Colonel, this isn't a good place for us to hang around."

"Ya think?"

Daniel winced again. He really didn't like pissing Jack off, whatever the guy seemed to think. He said gently, "Jack, I just really need you to…"

Jack turned on him and held up his finger. "Daniel, are you going to translate what's on that tablet or not?"

Daniel sighed but returned his gaze levelly. "Not."

"Then I don't want to hear what you have to say right now."

Jack turned away and Daniel tried not to mind quite as much as he did. Being angry would definitely have helped but he seemed to have lost the knack of being angry with Jack at the moment. Probably something to do with the little matter of the man having rescued him from insanity and certain death at the hands of the priests of Onuris. The ones Daniel had later berated him for having left to die under a pile of rubble. Something Jack would never have had to do if Daniel had done as he asked him in the first place and never gone to the temple. Perhaps those were some of the reasons he was finding it a little difficult to feel angry with Jack right now.

Looking at Daniel Jackson with his arms wrapped around his upper body as though they could shield him from enemy fire, Teal'c thought again how difficult was the relationship between the young scholar and the older warrior. They were usually so in tune with one another that when they could not agree it troubled them greatly and was even occasionally interpreted as a form of betrayal by the other. He had seen this behavior in family members before now, or married couples, where each expected the other to agree with them, even if they were wrong, simply because of their close connection.

He had observed this reaction from Daniel Jackson and O'Neill in the past when they been unable to agree on something fundamental. Last time it had been O'Neill's inability to believe in the message Sha're had transmitted to Daniel Jackson through the ribbon device; something that had spilled into the untidy matter of Daniel Jackson's brief relationship with the woman who had once been Linea. Daniel Jackson had been so unlike himself during that time that Teal'c had been gravely concerned for him, feeling unhappy if the scholar was out of his sight for more than a few minutes. He had feared the younger man might even be suicidal, although he was expressing his grief through anger and by closing himself off from the rest of them.

It had been a great relief to him – and he suspected also to Major Carter – when O'Neill had gone to see Daniel Jackson and agreed to search for the child. He suspected O'Neill had chosen his words carefully for once, for Daniel Jackson had been transformed by whatever O'Neill had said to him in that meeting. After his discussion with O'Neill even his grief had appeared to be more bearable to him and the two men had been on the best possible terms. But Teal'c sometimes wondered if O'Neill was aware of just how important was his good opinion to Daniel Jackson. Or how utterly it would destroy the younger man if he ever thought that he had lost it. There were times when he feared O'Neill was so busy telling himself how much more intelligent his companions were than himself that he forgot how necessary he was to the rest of them, and to Daniel Jackson in particular.

He did know O'Neill was aware how sensitive Daniel Jackson was, how easily his self-confidence could be crushed, how quickly he could be persuaded any set of circumstances were his fault. Teal'c had realized from the outset the young scholar needed to be treated with even more respect and consideration than a warrior. Even if he acted unwisely, or thoughtlessly, or with no apparent care for his own safety, Teal'c felt it should not be mentioned as it might do him emotional harm. Although he, O'Neill, and Major Carter had never discussed this aspect of Daniel Jackson's personality directly, he noticed that his two companions were always careful not to undermine the younger man's confidence as well.

Having grown up on Chulak where scholars served only their god, and women were never required to be warriors, he felt himself to be more aware than O'Neill of how great was the courage shown by Major Carter and Daniel Jackson. On other worlds, less was asked of people of their position and gender. Men of learning were not also expected to act as soldiers, nor were even women of the great intelligence and skill of Major Carter expected to risk their lives on the battlefield. Warriors like himself and O'Neill were expected to defend people like them, never be defended by them, and yet on several occasions now he or O'Neill had owed their lives to the bravery and intelligence of these two younger members of SG-1.

On more than one occasion he felt that O'Neill had been guilty of taking for granted Major Carter's brilliance as a scientist. Her understanding of Goa'uld technology was unparalleled in Teal'c's experience, while her skill in battle surpassed that of most of the warriors he had known. Even when she was presented with technology that was entirely new to her, she could usually make it work or understand how it was constructed, and he often felt O'Neill did not fully comprehend how hard were the tasks set for her and how well she overcame them. O'Neill was unstinting in the confidence he displayed in all of them, but his lack of understanding of their individual fields of expertise sometimes made Teal'c feel that he did not always appreciate how very fortunate he was to have two such minds as those of Major Carter and Daniel Jackson at his disposal.

He was never certain either if O'Neill realized how unusual were Daniel Jackson's talents. To meet a man who had amassed such knowledge at such a very young age had been a revelation to Teal'c. In his experience scholars were old men, men too whose interests were usually narrow, whereas Daniel Jackson's were wide-ranging. More, he was still curious about everything they encountered, had not allowed his mind to become closed-off to new experiences the way so many men had on Chulak. And there were other things about Daniel Jackson that were unique and deserved to be protected and nurtured. Teal'c knew of very few people who would have accepted as a friend the man who had been responsible for the loss of his wife, but if Daniel Jackson had ever blamed Teal'c, it had never shown in his actions, speech, or even expression, when he addressed him.

And, of course, these special qualities of Daniel Jackson made one want to keep him safe. He knew that O'Neill wanted to keep him safe as much – if not more – than any of them. His current anger only came from his feeling Daniel Jackson had once again unnecessarily exposed himself to harm and was now frustrating O'Neill's efforts to protect him. Teal'c could understand how exasperating O'Neill might find this, but he also felt O'Neill should remember it was not only Daniel Jackson's body that was in need of their protection. His mind and spirit were equally as vulnerable to harm, and in his determination to keep the younger man physically whole, O'Neill was in danger of bruising his fragile inner self.

Teal'c first checked to ensure that Major Carter was safeguarding their retreat and then caught up with O'Neill in a few strides. He glanced at Daniel Jackson as he passed him and saw the younger man was biting his lip, gaze fixed on the back of O'Neill's head as he led the way out of the chamber, blue eyes at once pleading and a little resentful. Teal'c could almost feel Daniel Jackson willing O'Neill to understand his reasons and at least try to understand them. Teal'c did not feel this was an unreasonable wish on Daniel Jackson's part. But nor did he think it was one likely to be granted any time soon.

As he caught up with O'Neill the man said tersely, "I don't want to hear it."

"Do not want to hear what, O'Neill?"

"Why we shouldn't go around changing history. Half of the stuff on that tablet isn't even true. The little detail about Daniel being a god, for instance, and raising people from the dead. And I notice that when you were setting down your 'staff of fire' to pull rocks off the damned priests no one mentioned you were using a pulley system."

"Nevertheless, their prophecy is clearly based on fact, and we ourselves have experienced the reality of traveling to a different time. It may also have been dangerous to us to read on. Our survival on this planet may depend on our ignorance of the immediate future."

O'Neill gave him a suspicious glance. "How do you work that one out?"

"Had you known that you would be captured by Apophis if you traveled to Chulak, would you still have done so?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Probably not."

"Then I would still be First Prime of Apophis, and many more people would be dead. Sometimes to know a little of one's future and try to avoid it might be to do both oneself and others incalculable harm."

"You know, just once, I would like you and Carter to back me up instead of Daniel."

Teal'c gave O'Neill a level look. "If I thought Daniel Jackson was wrong on this matter, you can be sure I would have said so."

O'Neill opened his mouth to retort, then looked around and frowned. "Where's Harun?"

"He was…" Daniel turned in a circle, "…right here."

"Well now he isn't."

They exchanged a glance and Daniel thought how tired Jack looked. He felt unbelievably tired himself, as if someone had opened a vein without him noticing, some razorblade slash to the back of his ankle which had left a blood trail all the way back to the temple for Onuris' Jaffa to follow. And he'd had a lot more sleep than the others. Not to mention all the stress he hadn't had because it wasn't his teammate who'd managed to get himself captured and tortured. There was still that hard look in Jack's eyes when the man's gaze passed over him but Daniel knew Jack too well to be fooled by it now; he could see what lay behind it and that expression showed nothing but concern for him.

He said conversationally, "You know, Jack, if Onuris does get me, you have to admit it really will be entirely my own fault. I mean I know I ask you to work miracles just about once a month but I got us into this one all by myself, and I really don't expect you to get us out of it."

"Yeah, that's going to be a terrific consolation when he's feeding us all to his pet alligators."

"More likely to be lions actually. His consort was the lion goddess, Mehit. Which brings us back to the Early Christians again and…you really don't want to hear any of this right now, do you?"

Jack said evenly, "However did you guess?"

"Come…"

Daniel turned to see Harun beckoning to them impatiently. He forced a weary smile. "We thought you'd gone."

"No, no. You must follow me. The caves are very treacherous. Men have been lost here for many days. Sometimes forever. You must stay with me."

Daniel looked over his shoulder and saw Sam moving up behind him and Teal'c falling into position behind her. Jack, of course, was ahead of him. He was in the middle; as protected as they could keep him. He closed his eyes and stumbled after Jack, exhaustion leadening every limb. Death was starting to seem welcome, as at least it would give him some rest. He was getting flashes of the blue light again, Shokmar emerging from the place in his memory where Jack had wanted it walled up forever. Wesheb… Wesheb… Questions to which there never had been answers. Like the ones the Inquisition asked or Witchfinders already determined to find you guilty of something. He kept seeing the High Priest's face, malevolent, triumphant, overlaid by the face of that dying man suffering under the stone. People crushed by falling stones. Such a terrible way to die. They'd told him it was quick. A few seconds of fear followed by instantaneous death. He'd known there would have been pain, but only an eye blink and then there would have been darkness, silence, whatever came later.

As a child he'd thought in terms of later: heaven, angels singing, something better. People had told him his parents had gone to a better place, thinking it would console him, but it had made it sound as though they'd chosen to leave him behind. Now he wondered if it had been instantaneous after all. Perhaps they'd lain there dying slowly, minute by minute by minute by…

"Daniel…?"

Jack was mad with him. Mad as hell with him. He couldn't have it all ways, couldn't have Jack be the parents he'd lost when he needed him to be and treat him with perfect equality as well. Sooner of later he was going to have to choose what he needed Jack to be: big brother, stepfather, or friend. He couldn't be glad of those times when Jack took him home with him, fed him, and tucked him up on the couch to catch up on his sleep, and then resent it when the guy turned around and told him they were doing things his way today. Sometimes Jack wasn't the only one who found their friendship exhausting; who wondered when it had all got so – intense. Some days it seemed as though everything Jack said to him just mattered too damned much.

"Daniel?"

Their footsteps sounded hollow, as if they were made of tin. This was a straight section of tunnel. Good. He could close his eyes for a few paces. Listen to where Jack's feet were landing and place his own feet where the echoes were still lying on the stone like puddles. When he opened his eyes there was the eerie blackness of the caves, their shadows separating as they were spiked by different points of light; Harun's torch sending up grey wisps of smoke from a hissing red flame; Jack's flashlight dissecting the darkness in a shaft of blue light. Blue light. Wesheb…Wesheb… Not again. The same circle over and over. A damned uroboros of memory forever swallowing its own tail.

"Daniel!"

Daniel opened his eyes and blinked. He was propped against the wall of a cavern. Jack was steadying him, hands on his upper arms holding him up but was half-turned away, speaking over his shoulder. "Look, he's out on his feet here. You said you were going to take us to a place of safety. How much further is it?"

"Sorry." Daniel pushed himself off the wall. "Sorry. Don't know why I'm so tired…You must be even…You look...I'm the only one who's had any sleep…"

"Your body had a bad shock, Daniel." He saw Sam's face swim in front of him, a pale oval with two bright points of blue looking at him compassionately. "An experience like that was bound to take it out of you." Her hand felt hot against his forehead. Her voice was indistinct as she turned her head away, "Sir, he's very cold."

"I know." So quiet an admission you could hardly hear it, then Jack was saying tersely, "Look, Harun, I'm not dragging him through these damned caves for no good reason. Can Onuris' Jaffa find us here or not?"

"It would be safer if we were further in."

"Well Daniel's pretty much had it and none of us are going to be fit for anything if we don't get some rest soon."

"I'm going to get us all killed, aren't I?" Daniel was surprised by how calm his voice sounded when he felt so sick inside.

"Daniel Jackson…" Something soft and comforting. A silver blanket and Teal'c guiding him towards it. The floor looked very inviting. Even without the blanket it would have been something he could lie on that would hardly move at all, with the blanket it was irresistible. Then he was lying down with the cave floor lapping gently all around him. Teal'c's palm warm against his face, a brief contact. "You must rest." He always found Teal'c's voice soothing, even when the Jaffa was telling them they were going to die there was still a kind of comforting certainty to it which gave you something solid to hang onto.

Jack was questioning Harun: "You've read that damned tablet-thing, right? You know what happens? Is this a good place for us to rest for the night or should Teal'c and I pick Daniel up and carry him further into the caves? Is there a reason why we shouldn't stay here?"

Harun was a blur but when you were near-sighted you became skilled at reading body language and Harun's was full of hesitancy. The man was caught in two minds about something. Like someone experiencing doubt for the first time in a long while. Daniel could feel sleep tugging at him, something he could slip into, somewhere dark and still and comforting as death, but he needed to stay awake long enough to hear Harun's answer.

Harun spoke quietly, "It is written that Chosen One rested that night surrounded by his avatars."

"And they were okay? Nothing bad happened to him or his – avatars?"

"Sir…" Sam sounded uneasy. "He might not be comfortable sharing that knowledge with you."

"Major, I don't give a rat's ass."

"You should rest." Harun's response was soothing but not very informative. "All of you should rest. I can keep watch."

"That isn't what I asked."

Just before Daniel's eyelids pressed down, he read evasion in every blur of Harun's body. As he drifted into sleep, he realized the man was poised on the brink of lying.

O'Neill glanced across at Daniel and saw that he was asleep. It wasn't exactly sleeping peacefully, more like comatose. There were none of those little stirrings and murmurings you usually observed in someone dreaming, Daniel was just limp, white, and still. It was all O'Neill could do not to go over there and check he was still breathing. The firelight spat and glowed, smoke filtering up to find cracks in the ceiling, Daniel's pale face flickering between light and shadow as the flames danced. He suspected Daniel's nerve-endings were still vibrating faintly, his body only slowly emerging from the shock into which all those hours of pain would have put it. When he'd held Daniel earlier, he'd felt a tremor like a road being dug up four blocks away, and in the hut Harun had taken them to Daniel's hands had been too shaky to tie his laces. Carter had done it for him. Daniel hadn't even noticed. God, he just wanted to get him home. He just wanted to get all of them home.

Glancing across at Carter, he saw the bruised shadows beneath her eyes. She'd looked like this on Netu, dead on her feet but still functioning, still thinking, blue eyes huge with exhaustion but the intelligence in them undimmed. The last thing to shut down on these two was always their minds, and when they were tired she and Daniel could have been twins.

After assuring them they would be safe here, Harun had busied himself with seeing to the fire, fussing over them unobtrusively and tactfully, deferential but not obsequious. It didn't help. He couldn't really like the guy. He couldn't get past the fact these people had known. Known and not done anything to stop it. None of this had needed to happen. People always said what a wonderful thing hindsight was, and Harun had been given it, just for these events. He'd known someone who'd never willingly hurt another human being was going to wander up to that temple to be captured and tortured for hours. He could have saved Daniel and he hadn't. He'd just – let it happen.

"Neb? Sewer? Wenem?"

"What?" O'Neill was jolted out of his reverie to find Harun tentatively offering him something in a dish. With its vermilion coloring and those bits of herbs floating on it, the stuff looked like cheap punch. He sniffed at it and then wrinkled his nose. "No, thanks."

Harun turned to Carter, speaking even more gently to her. "You should eat? Drink?"

She glanced across at him for his permission first and he shrugged, leaving it up to her. His instinct was to tell Harun where to shove his food and drink but the guy had helped them so far and Carter certainly looked like she needed the sustenance. In fact she looked a breath away from total collapse and he frowned in concern. She took the shallow dish and sipped the hot red juice gingerly. He watched her swallow the stuff down and she looked so pale in the firelight he half-expected to be able to see the dark juice showing through the thin skin of her throat. When she wiped her mouth afterwards, the drink left a red streak across the back of her hand. He blinked as the smoke stung his eyes and focused again to find her looking at him compassionately. "You should have some, sir, it's very…reviving."

"Actually I'm trying to give it up."

He saw Harun putting some twisted bread-type stuff into her hand and noticed the effort it cost her even to chew. This wasn't good. He could feel exhaustion leadening his own limbs; Daniel was out for a very long count and Carter didn't look far behind him. This was not the kind of shape they needed to be in to outwit and outflank a vengeful Goa'uld and a couple of hundred Jaffa. Only Teal'c seemed to be in reasonable condition, and even he wasn't happy. He was out prowling the corridors suspiciously. O'Neill was with him on that. If ever a place smelt like a trap to him, it was here. He would have liked every entrance and exit alarmed and defended but you couldn't set up a line of claymores in a cavern unless you wanted to bring the ceiling down on yourself when the enemy turned up.

When Harun offered him some of the bread stuff, he shook his head, pulling an MRE out of his pocket and holding it up instead. It already felt like a lifetime ago he'd given that PowerBar bar to Daniel. "No thanks. We have our own." He looked at the pouch he was holding. Carter and Teal'c had ripped half a dozen MRE pouches open and distributed the contents as evenly as they could manage it, but he just bet he'd ended up with the damned macaroni and cheese again while everyone else had the chicken with salsa or beef stew.

O'Neill looked down at the pack he was holding. Yes, macaroni and cheese, well no way in hell was he eating that straight out of the pack, he didn't care how many times the Air Force told him this was a hot or cold option. He pushed it back into his vest pocket and felt around for something else. The next pack was a chocolate cookie. Air Force 'cookies' always tasted like a graham cracker dipped in chocolate to him but it was still better than that macaroni and cheese. He bit into it as though he liked it and discovered he was still so hungry it tasted pretty good to him.

Harun was looking at him curiously, as if he was a Rubik's cube that kept coming out wrong. He wondered if Daniel knew what a Rubik's cube was. The guy had shocking holes in his general knowledge. Could tell you the names of a whole bunch of dead Ancient Sumerian tyrants but hadn’t known who Luke Skywalker was until O'Neill had made him watch all those Star Wars videos. Way too many years grave-robbing on archaeological digs in Third World countries and not enough years just hanging out getting in touch with the late twentieth century. They were almost into the twenty first century, damnit, and Daniel still spent most of his head-time in 3000 BC.

Mind you, there were compensations, like the way Daniel was with TV. Not sports, unfortunately, they seemed to leave Daniel cold however many times you explained the rules to him and the names of the teams he should be rooting for, but movies. The only other person he'd ever known who watched movies on TV like Daniel, was Charlie. Like it was simultaneously real and magic, completely absorbed in whatever story was being told. Daniel never noticed ropey special effects or wobbling scenery, the same way children never noticed, he just believed it.

It was after the business with that…crystal replica of himself that Sara had given him all of Charlie's videos. Apparently she'd started dismantling his bedroom, preparing for the fact he really never was coming back. She'd said she could never watch those movies again herself but she couldn't bear to give them away either. She'd handed them to him and then walked away. She wouldn't come in for coffee. When he'd called after her, she wouldn't look round. And as she'd backed her car out of the drive he'd seen the tears glinting on her cheeks. She'd driven off and left him with a cardboard box full of videos and the realization his marriage was finally and irrevocably over.

Up until then he'd thought they would get back together at some point. How could two people who loved each other that much and who had all that shared history not get back together at some point? But that was when he'd realized the thing that connected them so finally and irrevocably had become a dead child. All the time they'd spent together before Charlie's birth had somehow been cancelled out by the years since. At some point Charlie had obviously become the mortar which held their marriage together; their shared point of reference; the best thing about their relationship. In becoming two people with a child they both loved, they had somehow lost the knack of being two people who just loved each other, and they couldn't get back there again. The love hadn't gone, but those two people had. They weren't who they had been and they never would be again. From here on he and Sara could only be Charlie's parents with one another, which meant they couldn't be in a room together and Charlie's ghost not be in the room with them as well. He couldn't forget when he was with Sara. And perhaps Sara couldn't forgive when she was with him.

It hadn't been very long after that he thought he'd lost Daniel too. Bubbles rising. Flames engulfing. Daniel screaming. Even now, the memory of an event which had never taken place could chill him to the core. When they'd got Daniel back from the sea there had been no question where he would be convalescing from that damned memory device. Not in the infirmary after the first night because Daniel had given him his best begging look and O'Neill hadn't been in a state to withstand it. And not Daniel's apartment because it was full of cardboard boxes. A bare, chilly place tasting of their despair. Not anywhere, in fact, where O'Neill couldn't go and reassure himself Daniel was alive at regular intervals.

As his spare room was still waiting to be reclaimed from being a storage facility, Daniel had been installed on his couch again, although this time the semi-patient had become temporarily nocturnal. Having slept through a night and a day in the infirmary recovering from Nem's memory device, Daniel couldn't get his circadian rhythms back on track straight away. The first few days the headaches has been frightening but they'd receded. Daniel had stopped getting flashbacks to 2000 BC. O'Neill had stopped flinching every time he poured himself a glass of beer and the foam frothed up too fast.

The first night he'd sat up with Daniel and they'd talked more than they'd managed since the day he'd brought Daniel back from Abydos. About Sha're. About Sara. About their shared hope of getting Skaara back. It had probably been what women would call a 'bonding' experience but back then he hadn't learned to be completely comfortable with Daniel's unconscious ability to make him spill his guts. Particularly not so soon after he'd had it brought home to him how damned much Daniel now meant to him and there was always the danger he might admit it in an unguarded moment. Couldn't have Daniel knowing he mattered to him now, could he? Christ, the guy had been considering himself unwanted and unlovable pretty much full-time since the age of eight. Well he'd had that one year off for good behavior on Abydos when even Daniel couldn't fail to notice he was loved and needed by the entire population, but apart from that, no, Daniel knew no one could really miss him or care about him. O'Neill certainly didn't want to change that now, did he?

So he'd been uncomfortable whenever he and Daniel got to talking; always ending up giving away so much more than he intended and then regretting it later. The next day he was always twitchy. He'd surface in the morning feeling the way he did when he'd woken up to find a head on the pillow next to his he didn't recognize. He'd tried to explain that to Daniel once, an oblique apology for the mood he'd been in. Daniel had looked at him unblinkingly for a moment before saying, "I see. So you're saying having a conversation with me about anything more intimate than the weather makes you feel like you got drunk and picked up a hooker. Well thanks for the explanation, Jack. That makes me feel so much better."

Put like that, O'Neill had to admit, he did come across as something of a jerk. But they'd still both been looking for an excuse not to have another heart-to-heart the following night; O'Neill flicking through the god knows how many channels he now had with something approaching desperation.

That was when Charlie's videos had come to the rescue. O'Neill making himself watch them with Daniel even though he thought it might kill him to do it, but needing to see that wonder in someone's face again even more than he needed not to be reminded of everything he'd lost. In the end he hadn't watched the movies, he'd just watched Daniel watching them. So he could simultaneously be given back another memory of the child he'd lost and give Daniel back a slice of the childhood he'd never had. And after a little while the clenched fist inside him had relaxed its grip; he'd found the grief wasn't choking him like it always had before; he could breathe through it the way Sara had breathed through the birth pangs because even though Charlie was gone at least Daniel was still here…

"You are not an – angel, are you?"

O'Neill resented being jolted out his thoughts and looked at Harun without liking. "What was your first clue?"

"Are you a great lord?"

"I'm a Colonel in the United States Air Force."

Harun was frowning, waving a hand to brush the smoke away from his face, expression intent as he tried to translate the unfamiliar words. "I do not understand this description."

"We're…" What was that phrase Daniel always used? Oh yes. "We're peaceful explorers from the Planet Earth, Harun. We boldly go where no man has gone before. We're – "

"The Colonel's a warrior, Harun." There was just the tinge of reproach in Carter's voice. Telling him he shouldn't make fun of someone who was asking an honest question. She sounded hoarse, as though she had a sore throat.

The first he knew of Teal'c's presence was when the Jaffa said, "O'Neill is what you would call an Imey-er-mesha'."

"I'm a what?" O'Neill looked up at the Jaffa and raised an eyebrow. "They have a word for a colonel in the United States Air Force?"

"No, O'Neill." Teal'c glanced across at Daniel and O'Neill noted the way the Jaffa waited until he had seen the sleeping man's chest rise and fall, the proof that he was breathing, before turning back to answer him. "But they have a word for the general of an army."

"Oh. Promotion." O'Neill got to his feet and beckoned Teal'c over to the corner. "What's our situation?"

Teal'c glanced back at Daniel. "We appear to be at the center of a converging network of tunnels. Although this cavern contains three exits, we could still be trapped here if we were approached on several flanks simultaneously. Normally, I would not advise remaining here any longer."

O'Neill grimaced. "But Daniel's dead to the world, and Carter's not far behind him."

"One would expect the physical effects of Shokmar to be extremely debilitating. If Daniel Jackson is not permitted to recover his strength, he may suffer permanent injury."

"Yeah and if Onuris gets his hands on him, he'll definitely suffer permanent injury and of the fatal kind." But as he followed Teal'c's gaze to those ashen features; the dark eyelashes painfully vivid against the pallor of Daniel's face, O'Neill knew he couldn't wake him up for no good reason. He looked up at the Jaffa. "So you're saying, either we risk Daniel's life waking him up and moving him, or we risk Daniel's life spending the night in a place people might know we're going to be staying in?"

"Yes."

O'Neill looked at his watch and then rubbed a hand across his eyes. He was so damned tired he couldn't even trust his own judgment any more. "Okay – another two hours and then we haul out of here."

He read in the Jaffa's eyes how Teal'c didn't think he or Carter were going to be fit for anything after only two hours sleep. Glancing across at Carter he saw how her head was getting heavier and heavier. As he watched, Harun gently took the cloak from around his shoulders and wrapped it around her. There seemed to be genuine compassion in the action. Harun said something to her gently, clearly suggesting that she lay down for a little while. Carter was muttering a protest, but then allowing him to help her. He heard her say, "Just for a few minutes…" And then she was lying on her side, her MP-5 still gripped in her arms, while Harun was pulling the cloak up to cover her shoulder.

He couldn't understand that guy at all. There seemed nothing other than kindness and concern in his face whenever he looked at Carter or Daniel, but he'd still let Daniel be tortured and presumably had gone into that temple to watch the linguist dragged through it half-dead and…Why the hell had those people been in the temple in the first place? If they knew the avatars of the Chosen One were going to turn up and destroy the place, why were they just waiting for it to happen? Why had they taken their wives there, their children there?

O'Neill patted Teal'c on the shoulder, watching the Jaffa go with the familiar mixture of relief that Teal'c was out there guarding them and loss because he liked all his team under his eye.

"You blame us."

As O'Neill sat back down by the fire, he found Harun offering him the drink again. He frowned. "What?"

"You blame us for the sufferings of the Chosen One."

Seeing the sorrow in Harun's dark eyes, O'Neill thought about denying it and then shrugged. He took the proffered dish of dark juice. "When did you know what was happening?"

"We always watch the Seb'khet. When the four of you arrived, we hoped this time the Chosen One had come." Harun nodded across to Carter, "A woman with hair of gold. A warrior carrying his staff of fire…"

"And Daniel?" He paused with the dish halfway to his lips and couldn't help bitterness twisting his voice. "You saw him head towards the temple?"

Harun sighed. "Yes."

He couldn't stop his jaw clenching. "So you could have saved him? You could have warned him?"

"I wanted to." Harun looked at the fire. "When I saw how young he was – how unafraid and yet as though he had no knowledge of his own divinity."

"Daniel has no – divinity, damnit. Like I told you earlier, he's just a guy like you or me. He's just very curious about everything. And, of course, he thinks people are basically decent and can be reasoned with, despite all the evidence to the contrary he's been given over the years."

"It is written that the Chosen One's heart was full of trust, innocence, and love."

O'Neill threw back the juice and then wiped his mouth. It tasted like bad sloe gin with a tequila chaser so perhaps it would keep out the cold. He felt unbelievably tired and as old as his knees tonight. "Well, once upon a time it probably was. Although I should think people grabbing him and torturing him for no reason will have put a bit of fear and suspicion in there as well now." He handed the dish back to Harun, not meeting his gaze because if he did he wasn't going to be able to conceal how angry he was they'd let Daniel walk right past them to his fate.

"We have waited many generations for his coming. We wish to be free of the False god."

O'Neill glared at him. "Well why the hell don't you get off your asses and fight him then? Why wait for Daniel to come here and save you? Why don't you save yourselves?"

"We are ready to die to defeat the False god. Many of us died in the temple."

O'Neill took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. The warmth from that red juice was spreading through him now, comforting, beguiling. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep. He made an effort to focus. "That's another thing I don't understand. If you knew we were going to come rescue Daniel and destroy the temple doing it, why the hell were you all there?"

Harun blinked at him in surprise. "Because so it was written. The rescue of the Chosen One was witnessed by the multitudes. There will always be sacrifices. Those who died knew their deaths were proof the time of salvation was at hand."

O'Neill grimaced. People who would sacrifice themselves just so a prophecy could be realized were not going to lose any sleep over sacrificing four strangers. "Look, I don't care about your damned – bible, Harun. I care about getting my team out of here safely. Daniel is not dying so the rest of you can be saved."

There was a long pause in which Harun's gaze strayed to where Daniel was lying.

"I mean look at him, will you? Really look at him. He's just a guy like you and me."

"In your world, perhaps." Harun carefully avoided O'Neill's gaze as he spoke. "But in ours he is the Chosen One."

As he opened his mouth to refute it, O'Neill realized that it was unanswerable. Exhaustion was pressing on his eyelids. He was going to have to close his eyes even it was only for ten minutes. He automatically put in the earpiece in to talk to Teal'c and then remembered that none of their communication equipment worked here. God, he hated this planet.

"You must rest now."

He glared at Harun, too tired to stay awake any longer but knowing he had to at least until Teal'c came back. "Written, is it?"

Evidently not understanding sarcasm, Harun nodded. "Yes."

As exhaustion closed his eyes, O'Neill knew there had to be a good answer to that. As he drifted into slumber, he was still trying to think what it could be.

***

Despite the fact there were no footfalls to hear, Teal'c sensed there was someone behind him. He spun around, staff weapon at the ready.

Harun held up his hands, surprise and a hint of fear on his face. "It is only I."

Teal's slowly lowered the staff weapon. "Did O'Neill send you?"

"He is asleep." Harun nodded at the tattoo on Teal'c's forehead. "What emblem is it that you wear?"

Teal'c gazed down the next corridor, checking that it was empty before returning to answer Harun's question. "It is the mark of Apophis. Another false god like your Onuris, in whose service I once was."

"Why did you leave it?"

Teal'c saw no harm in telling the man the truth, and there was a chance it might do Harun some good to hear that there were others out there who had been enslaved by false gods and yet who had managed to throw off the shackles of their oppressors.  He told him of Ra first. Of the manner in which O'Neill and Daniel Jackson had managed to defeat him despite knowing nothing of his power and being handicapped by technology greatly inferior to that of the Goa'uld. He knew there was a danger he might only be adding to Daniel Jackson's godlike status in the man's eyes. But it could not be denied that O'Neill and Daniel Jackson had managed in a matter of days to incite successful rebellion on a world that had languished under Ra's tyranny for thousands of years.

He told Harun then of how the news of Ra's death had filtered out to the other System Lords and to the false god Teal'c served. The disbelief of the other Goa'uld, followed by jubilation in the case of Apophis, followed by fear. Although Ra had been Apophis' enemy of old, the Goa'uld had believed what had happened on Abydos could happen anywhere if such an uprising was allowed to go unpunished. Apophis had still harbored hopes back then of being permitted to return to the fold of the System Lords. He had hoped to overcome the hostility of Cronos and Heru'ur by proving his loyalty to their collective cause. To this end he had decided the people of Abydos, and the Tau'ri who had influenced them, must be taught the error of their ways.

Teal'c told Harun of Apophis' visit to the world of the Tau'ri, the world that was now Teal'c's home. Of his visit to Abydos. The theft of the wife of Daniel Jackson and of her brother. How Teal'c had himself selected Sha're as a possible host for Amaunet, how Daniel Jackson had offered himself as a host so as to be with his wife, how the guilt had eaten into Teal'c's guts like the venom of a poisonous snake. How O'Neill had given him a way to make amends for all the battles in which he had been on the wrong side when he had asked for Teal'c's help.

"You betrayed your god?" Harun stared at Teal'c intensely.

Teal'c returned his gaze levelly. "Have you not also betrayed yours? You have denied Onuris to worship Daniel Jackson."

"Onuris was never my god." Harun's gaze strayed back to the chamber in which Teal'c's teammates were sleeping. "To betray a god in whom you have no belief is no sacrifice."

Looking at Harun's expression, the sorrow on his face, the tension in his body language, Teal'c felt unease stir within him again. "But you understand that the people of Abydos were not enslaved by Ra. They were enslaved by their belief that he was a god. I too was enslaved by my belief in Apophis' divinity and my desire to avenge my father's death. Only when I did as Master Bra'tac had asked of me and began to think for myself could I break free from the service of Apophis."

"Your decision was difficult," Harun observed.

"In fact it was far easier than decisions I have made in the past," Teal'c assured him. "I knew that to kill unarmed men and women was wrong and to attempt to save them was right. There were many worse choices I was forced to make while in the service of Apophis."

Harun nodded and turned back towards the chamber where the others were sleeping. As he hesitated in the doorway, he said, "You speak as it was written on the sacred tablet that the avatar Wrath would speak."

"This surprises you?" Teal'c watched the man carefully, trying to discern how he was thinking, whether he was likely to save them or betray them.

"Your words do not surprise me, no. But it was written that he spoke to the prophet." Harun looked a little dazed. "That he spoke only to the prophet." He met Teal'c's gaze. "And yet you have spoken to me. How can I prophesy what has already been foretold?"

"Because the prophecy is wrong." Teal'c said it with emphasis. "Do what you know to be right, Harun, not what is written."

Harun backed up as though Teal'c's words were sparks that might singe him. "I will do what must be done to save my people from a false god."

As Harun ducked back into the chamber where Teal'c's teammates were sleeping, the Jaffa felt that hand close around his heart again. Daniel Jackson had seemed tired to the point of near-death; there had been a fever flush to the cheek of Major Carter which had filled Teal'c with foreboding, and now it seemed that even O'Neill had given way to his exhaustion, and slept. Teal'c could not protect all of his teammates single-handed. Nor could he hope to lead them through the catacombs when there were no tracks or signs to guide him. He needed Harun to help him or else they were all surely doomed. And yet, he was now even more certain that for all his apparent kindness to them, Harun's first loyalty would always be to the prophecy Daniel Jackson had refused to translate. The one in which for all they knew, it was written that they had died so that Harun's people might be saved.

***

Hadante. Dark. Underground. Phosphorescence on those slime-running walls. Every tunnel the same. A few hours down here and you began to lose all sense of direction. Daniel in so much danger and blissfully oblivious. Every time O'Neill turned around there had been men waiting in the shadows for him to look the other way, get careless, leave Daniel unattended for the moment it would take them to grab him. Carter was under Linea's protection and astonishingly enough it seemed to be holding out, like an invisible force-field all around her. But he'd felt that shift in their interest after the woman had walked away, the echoes of her declaration still lingering; the one that left Carter out of the running of people the human flotsam could fuck with. There had been a moment when it seemed like everyone's gaze transferred itself to Daniel. O'Neill had told himself it was just his imagination. Got Teal'c to take the lead then walked out of there as casually as he could manage it. The important thing was to show no fear in a place like this. Not panicking. Definitely not panicking. Trying to act as if worrying about Carter and Daniel was the last thing on his mind, because no way was anyone going to screw with them. The idea was so ludicrous he wasn't even going to… Damnit, Daniel, don't go last! Don’t you have any sense at all? Don't you know what these...? A pause, a slight regrouping and there were Daniel and Carter where they should be, in the middle, between him and Teal'c. And no, Daniel didn't know. Daniel didn't know squat and it was his and Teal'c's job to keep him knowing squat…

Why? He wondered again why it had seemed so important to keep Daniel ignorant. Keeping him safe was understandable, keeping him unaware of the danger he was in wasn't. So why had that been almost as high a priority with him as not letting Daniel get grabbed? Because you still thought of him as a child. Not a child. Christ, he'd known the guy's age from their first meeting and it was, what thirty? Thirty-one maybe. He couldn't remember without looking it up. Well over puberty anyway. Old enough to know about stuff like that. About stuff like…

He'd kept looking around while they were talking, feeling like someone trying to guard an orphaned baby zebra when the hyenas were hungry. Every guy prowling around just out of reach had been looking at Daniel. He'd sometimes wondered what rapists looked like and now he knew. He hated the look in their eyes, not the lust, it wasn't really lust, more like dislike and contempt combined, a slow burn that looked a little like vengeance. Wanting to punish Daniel, despising him and desiring to hurt him just for being – presentable? Untouched? Looking so clean and fresh-faced and young and innocent when they were all bloodstained and smeared with sin and defeat? O'Neill standing there poised on the brink of an abyss where they'd fuck your teammate to death if you took too long blinking. He had to get out of there, had to get Daniel out of there, get them all out of there; get them home. Get them home. Home…

"Jack?"

He wondered how many times Daniel had said his name. How many times he'd said Daniel's name. Daniel. Danny. Dannyboy. Jackson. God, it was a long time since he'd thought of Daniel as 'Jackson'. He wasn't sure he ever had really; had ever been the Jack O'Neill who called Daniel 'Jackson'. Abydos had changed him too. You didn't go through the Stargate and come back exactly the same man. And thank Christ for that in his case. That hard-assed suicidal grief-deranged fuck-up with every emotion strapped down so tight it was a miracle he hadn't exploded like semtex left to sweat in the sun, had needed to be changed into someone else.

"O'Neill?"

"Jack, please…Wake up. Please…?"

He found it so hard to say no to Daniel when he said 'please' to him. It was like when he owned up to something. You tried to bring them up to tell the truth, but that meant you couldn't be mad with them even if they did something wrong, as long as they owned up. Charlie breaking that window. Daniel admitting he couldn't get them home. Even though he'd said he could. No point in being mad with him. An honest mistake. And what did it matter if they stayed here anyway? What did it matter if they died here? What did it matter if everyone died now that Charlie was…? Charlie…?

"Jack…?"

Daniel?

"Jack, please, we have to go. We have to go now. They're coming. Teal'c help me with him. We need to carry him…"

He could smell smoke; it slid down his throat like a goddamned Tok'ra, squeezing his lungs, stealing his breath, making him cough. Hands reaching for him, tugging at him. No way in hell was Daniel carrying him. Daniel could hardly put one foot in front of the other. There had to be a way to get these damned eyes open .

"Oh thank God! Jack, can you stand? Can you walk?"

Those damned tinny echoes. The smoke stung his eyes and he closed them again. Good, someone had put out the fire. No light to guide the bad guys to them, and that had to be Teal'c helping him up because he was on his feet in a second, swaying like a reed but more or less upright. He forced his eyes open a crack to see Teal'c letting him go so he could pick up Carter. She was limp in the Jaffa's arms, white as paper except for a fever flush on her cheekbones he really didn't like the look of, and eyelids fluttering with REM. Daniel was looping his arm around his neck, trying to take his weight. Damnit, Daniel, you take Carter, let Teal'c take me. Show some commonsense. Daniel staggering under his weight but absolutely determined. God, he was stubborn. They were all moving more or less towards one of those exits now. Although Teal'c was advancing in a straight line whereas he and Daniel seemed to be doing a lot of unnecessary wavering from side to side. Daniel saying breathlessly into his ear, "I'm so sorry, Jack. We think Harun drugged you and Sam. Teal'c heard a noise and went to investigate. When he came back he found Harun gone and the two of you both unconscious. We think he must have gone to tell Onuris where we are. This is all my fault..."

Not your fault.

"I really thought we could trust him."

You trust everyone, Daniel.

"But then you probably think I trust everyone." A little grunt and stagger from Daniel as he tried to keep up with Teal'c. Why the hell hadn't Teal'c taken him from Daniel anyway? Because you're at least on your feet whereas Carter is out cold. A chill around his heart partially thawed by the memory of her drinking much more deeply than he had done. And women couldn't drink as much as men without getting drunk anyway, something to do with their fat-to-muscle quota or something. Whatever it was it had meant he was always the one who had to drive himself and Sara home from parties anyway, he remembered that much. So Carter was okay, she'd just had more of that funny punch stuff to drink and it would have hit her harder anyway. Another stagger from Daniel.

"God, Jack, you really need to lose some weight."

Damned nerve.

"I swear you weren't this heavy on Netu."

Yes I was, Daniel, but you weren't half-dead of exhaustion on Netu.

A bad stagger that nearly sent them both into the wall of the cavern. Great. Talk about the blind leading the blind, this was the shokmared leading the drugged. He and Daniel were definitely lurching here. A sailboat tacking against a high wind had nothing on them.

"Ow!" A painful close-up of those red lines in the black rock. Damnit to hell, Daniel, these walls are made of stone, you know!

"Sorry…I'm sorry…" Daniel was tightening his grip on him, leaning forward as though into a blizzard. They clashed heads as he stumbled. He heard Daniel give a little whimper, and realized what an effort this was for him. It was probably all he could do to stay upright. O'Neill tried to help him but his legs felt like spaghetti, there was no strength anywhere in his body. Daniel was having to take far too much of his weight both in holding him up and moving him forward. Another stagger. "Sorry, Jack…sorry…"

Stop apologizing, Daniel, you're doing the best you can…

At least the drug was wearing off a little now. Perhaps there was a vent somewhere letting in the chill night air because he could feel his brain slowly getting up to something like normal speed. His eyelids no longer appeared to be glued shut. His larynx didn't feel as though it had been shot full of Novocain. He felt Daniel's arm around his waist supporting him, their speed increase, and suddenly he was back on Netu, one step behind the beat, flames erupting, sulfur clawing at his throat, smoke everywhere, unbearable heat, and the pain in his leg stabbing deeper with every step. His right arm around Daniel's shoulders, Daniel's left arm around his waist, both of them moving so much faster than he would have believed possible, Daniel murmuring into the communication device as they hurried towards rescue. Rescue.

O'Neill opened his eyes. The flashlight sent a zigzagging blue beam all around them. Daniel must have it attached to the front of his flak jacket to leave his hands free. He'd learned how to do that very early on. Daniel was always better at learning military procedures he could see the point of…Blue light? He'd thought the light was red? Like Hell was supposed to be. All he could hear were the hollow echoes of their footsteps, running and stumbling, magnified by the stone until they sounded like a platoon. He glanced at Daniel's face and saw it was as he remembered it, grubby, bone-white, sweat trickling down his bruised cheekbone…The bruise was on the wrong side. He hadn't been able to see the bruise on Netu. He hadn't even know there was a bruise until they were in the tel'tak. Something was wrong. "Daniel?"

Daniel tightened his grip reassuringly. "Hang in there, Jack. Teal'c thinks we need to go deeper into the caves first to shake them off."

Of course, Teal'c was with them this time. Which was good. None of them liked being separated. They all felt a little incomplete when any of them were missing. Except Teal'c not being with them on Netu was the thing that had saved their lives. Teal'c had got them out. No. Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c had got them out. She'd found the transporter beam, worked out how to use the build up of heated gases to blow the grill above their heads. Daniel had got the communication device back. Teal'c had maneuvered the tel'tak into position just in time to save their about-to-be-deep-fried butts. And he'd got himself shot in the leg with a staff weapon. Right.

He looked across at Teal'c. The zigzagging light showed him a flash of blonde hair, white-gold against Teal'c's jacket. Carter. Still unconscious. It was odd about carrying Carter and Daniel. When you picked Carter up she weighed so much less than a man it didn't feel like any burden at all but then she slowly got heavier with every step. It just took that much longer for you to notice how much your knees were protesting. Daniel had one of those weird frames where the weight didn't sit anywhere so you always over-estimated the effort it would take to pick up someone of his height and build and damned near threw him straight over your shoulder. He remembered his mother pointing out once how weight was all about distribution; had told him to pick up their pet cat then put him down and pick up a bag of sugar. The sugar had seemed three times heavier than the cat even though they'd both weighed exactly five pounds. He always figured he and Daniel probably weighed about the same but Daniel was the cat and he was the bag of sugar. Bad guys were always pushing Daniel around as if he was made of balsa wood, yet every time Daniel stood on the scales he must think how damned unfair it was they could do that to him so easily.

He stumbled, grip instinctively tightening on Daniel's shoulder, would have fallen if Daniel hadn't held him up. He heard the grunt of exertion it cost the younger man to keep hold of him. Definitely the bag of sugar. He saw Daniel grit his teeth, tighten his grip on O'Neill's arm and waist, dig into those reserves of his which experience had taught O'Neill were near-limitless, and then haul him upright, move forward, taking his CO with him. He wondered if Daniel ever thought of him as his 'CO'. Come to that, he wondered if Daniel even knew he was his CO.

"Just a bit further, Jack," Daniel panted it encouragingly. "Just until Teal'c says – "

The Jaffa stopped abruptly and held up a hand. Daniel slammed on the brakes and they came to a ragged halt, O'Neill lurching, having to put out a hand to hold himself off the wall. Daniel swallowed. "Did you hear…?"

And then they all heard it. Metal-shod feet. Jaffa. The echoes loved the clatter of them and seemed to take pleasure in magnifying them a hundred times. O'Neill said the worst word he could think of.

Teal'c said, "Indeed, O'Neill."

"What do we do now?"

As O'Neill turned to tell Daniel he didn't know, he realized the question hadn't been addressed to him. Daniel was looking expectantly at Teal'c. Despite the fact his reply would only have been not to ask him because Teal'c was leading this expedition, O'Neill was still a little put out.

Daniel twisted his head round. "I can't tell if they're coming from behind us or in front of us."

"Neither can I." O'Neill offered. Okay, it was a somewhat negative contribution to the conversation but it did remind people he was there too.

As the footsteps became louder, booming, crashing, expanding to fill every available space, O'Neill became aware of the sidearm against his thigh. He wondered if he would look back on this moment later and realize this was when he should have put the gun against Daniel's head and pulled the trigger. He thought of all the ways tyrants had of killing their enemies. Having them torn apart by wild horses. Limbs ripped out and the sockets filled with molten metal. Buried alive. Impaled on stakes. Crucified. Made to fight to death in an arena…Daniel couldn't fight. It was an alien concept to him. If you punched him he just looked at you in bewilderment and wondered why you were doing it; it didn't occur to him he could hit you back. Onuris would have the priests shokmar him again; fry his nerve endings, melt his brain, and this time O'Neill would get the fun of hearing Daniel screaming for the help he couldn't give him. Then probably get to watch Daniel's heart be cut out on that altar. A bullet was so much kinder. Butch had done it for Sundance. It was what you did for your best friend when your lives were bleeding away too slowly into the darkness of a Bolivian night with no other way to guarantee death would come before dawn.

"Jack? Forward or back?"

O'Neill blinked, belatedly realizing the rapid whispering noise he'd taken to be bats had been Daniel and Teal'c trying to pick a strategy. He focused on Daniel's face. That boy was seriously in need of a shower. He had masonry dust all over his skin and stank of sweat and other people's blood. He wondered what color his bruise was coming out now. It might already be at the purple stage but it was hard to see by the flashlight beam.

"Jack?"

He could see a hint of panic in those blue eyes and realized Daniel needed him to snap out of it and start making decisions again. The guy was out on his feet and hanging on his by his fingernails. O'Neill said briskly, "Forwards. Every time. Let's get to a junction. Give ourselves some options."

He saw the relief on both Teal'c and Daniel's faces. So, not so redundant after all. Life in the old…Who the hell was he kidding? He could barely put one foot in front of the other without Daniel taking most of his weight. Teal'c was already striding down the middle of the corridor but O'Neill realized his staff-weapon was strapped to his back and his arms were full of unconscious Carter. Shouldn't she be waking up by now? Teal'c was going to have to put Carter down to use any of his weapons. The Touched had grabbed Daniel while he was trying to juggle Melosha and a machine-gun. Not to say Teal'c didn't move a hell of a lot faster than Daniel but all the same, he and Daniel should be at the front. At least he could use his free hand to fire his MP-5.

Those damned footsteps seemed to be coming from every direction at once now. He stumbled. Daniel hissed through his teeth, then doggedly hoisted him up a little higher and half-carried him, half-hauled him after Teal'c. "Not much farther now…"

O'Neill thought Daniel was saying it to give himself encouragement, but then realized Daniel was saying it to comfort him . It didn't. The truth was they had no idea how much farther they had to go. Journey's end could lie just around the next bend in the shape of a staff-weapon blast. A few more miles of being hunted through these rat-tunnels and it would probably come as a merciful release. He blinked as the blue beam of the flashlight revealed something up ahead that wasn't just corridor. The footsteps were deafening now. Daniel had made him watch some damned dull program about the Roman army, telling him how as a military man he ought to be interested in their maneuvers. He'd thought about retaliating by asking how someone who knew so much about tortoise formations and how many foot soldiers there were to a cohort still couldn't strap his damned sidearm on correctly. But he did reckon a couple of thousand legionnaires wouldn't have made more noise than these Jaffa. They definitely sounded closer.

Teal'c increased his pace, striding ahead of them in his hurry to see what the end of the corridor revealed. O'Neill forced his legs to carry more of his weight. They were still a little shaky but the drug was definitely wearing off. He looked sideways at Daniel and saw how focused he looked. He could practically see the messages Daniel was sending himself: Concentrate on Teal'c. Follow Teal'c. Help Jack. Any other communication Daniel's brain might be trying to send him about how exhausted he was or how imminent death might be, or how he wasn't in a fit state to be doing any of the things he was having to do, were clearly not getting through right now. But O'Neill had better get his strength back quickly because pretty soon he figured he was going to be carrying Daniel.

The footsteps were definitely coming from behind them now. No question. Teal'c strode out through an arched entrance in the corridor and he and Daniel were right behind him. For a second there was a sense of relief. An intersection. Crossroads. Four possible ways to take. Three possible escape routes. But then O'Neill realized how much louder the footsteps were here, magnified to the point of reverberating off the walls, like being in a subway station when a train was coming. They stood in the center of the crossroads, the passageways snaking away like bad dreams; bends in each direction concealing what was coming. The archway in front of them led into a dark chamber from which sound was definitely echoing. But there was also sound behind them, to the right, and to the left. Footsteps getting louder with every passing second. The three of them stood as close to a circle as they could get, shoulder to shoulder, Daniel looking back the way they'd come, Teal'c straight ahead, O'Neill trying to keep his eye on both the way to his right and the way in front of him.

Daniel said quietly, "They're coming from everywhere."

"Well they knew where to come to , didn't they?" O'Neill couldn't stop the bitterness showing in his voice. They were all going to die, and Daniel was going to die horribly because of Harun's twisted faith and Daniel's damned stupid ethics. He raised his MP-5 while Teal'c began to lower Carter to the floor.

"Don't." Daniel put a hand on each of their arms. "There are too many."

"I'd rather die fighting," O'Neill told him.

"As would I," Teal'c returned.

Daniel bit his lip. "Well I'd rather not die at all. Think, Jack."

"Not really my department."

"Then why in their damned prophecy are you considered more cunning than the wolf that hunts in winter?"

O'Neill shrugged, fighting doubt of his own. "Propaganda."

Teal'c hesitated, but only for a moment. Slowly, he slid his staff weapon back onto his back and tightened the strap. There was a quiet emphasis in the way he bent down and picked up Carter.

Daniel said quietly, "Thank you, Teal'c."

O'Neill was so damned tired and strung out anything seemed better to him right now than going back to that temple. Even dying here felt a whole lot more enticing than dying there. The footsteps were deafening now, it was impossible to think with the thunder of metal in his ears. This was his last chance to have any control over how they died. If he surrendered, they would be choiceless all over again.

Daniel was speaking rapidly: "I don't think we're meant to die here, but that doesn't mean we won't if you start firing. I don't think they'd have been waiting for us for all those centuries if all we did was raze their temple and then get blasted to death in these caves. Do you?"

As the first Jaffa appeared simultaneously from every direction at once, Teal'c turned so that his back was to the approaching staff weapons and Carter was shielded by his body. O'Neill looked at Daniel. He could feel the guy was taut as piano wire, trembling with tension, but there was certainty on his face. O'Neill closed his eyes then held up a hand and slowly lowered his MP-5 to the floor. "We surrender," he said. The words tasted like ash in his mouth but none of the Jaffa was firing yet. And this was another turnaround too: Daniel giving him the 'while there's life there's hope speech'. It didn't seem that long ago Daniel had been that poor kid on Klorel's ship slumped defeatedly in a corner saying 'We're blind and we failed' and now Daniel was someone who gave him hope.

There were locals with the Jaffa. Perhaps they'd been coerced into showing Onuris' lion guards the way through the catacombs, but he didn't think so. He thought betrayal had always been written into this escape plan as a non-optional extra. When he looked up to meet Harun's anxious gave, the anger flared in him and he started forward.

"You son-of-a- "

"Jack." Daniel grabbed his arm and held it tight. "Don't."

O'Neill let himself be pulled back, aware of Daniel murmuring something soothing to him but in his head hearing Daniel screaming his name over and over as the priests tortured him again.

Harun was looking at him beseechingly. "I had to do it."

"No, you didn't," O'Neill told him flatly. "There's a little thing called self-determination which means you get to make your own decisions. It also means you have to take responsibility for your actions. Like when you stab people in the back you claim to be helping."

"Let it go, Jack."

He turned to tell Daniel how you shouldn't let people get away with some things and realized this wasn't the bleeding heart brotherhood-of-man speech this was the I'm-dog-tired-and-so-are-you-and-what's-the-point-anyway speech. O'Neill felt a chill inside him as he saw the weary resignation in Daniel's eyes.

As the Jaffa closed around them, pulling them away from each other, then pushing them forward to stumble on the stone, O'Neill remembered Daniel saying 'We're peaceful travelers…' with no hope of being listened to as the door was slammed in his face. Remembered him so emphatically not telling the denizens of Netu Apophis wasn't a god and they shouldn't follow him. When Daniel had been running around trying to change the galaxy and make everyone throw off the evil yoke of the Goa'uld and be nice to one another, he'd occasionally felt a tad – impatient with him, but now he almost wished Daniel would be like that again. It felt like such a failure on his part to have let Daniel's faith in humanity get eroded to the point where he wasn't even shocked Harun had betrayed them.

He looked across at Carter. The Jaffa had taken Teal'c's staff weapon but had obviously decided he was so effectively handicapped by having her in his arms they might as well let him carry her and so save themselves the effort. Still no sign of her waking up and there was sweat on her forehead. He met Teal'c's gaze and saw the anxiety in those usually imperturbable brown eyes.

Daniel also shot a worried glance at their unconscious teammate, so tired even the effort of turning his head made him stumble. A Jaffa snarled something at him, grabbing him by the collar to haul him upright before shoving him forward again.

O'Neill grimaced. He could see the fever flush on Carter's cheekbones. If it was something she'd picked up from the locals she might not have any immunity. Or it could be an illness so simple one dose of antibiotics would dispose of it. But both would be equally incurable when they couldn't get to their medikits or their packs.

"Is Sam okay?" Daniel stumbled again and the Jaffa grabbed him by the hair this time, yanking him up impatiently. No way was Daniel going to be able to walk all the way back to the temple and that had to be as obvious to the lion guard pushing him along as anyone else, but the Jaffa was clearly going to put off the moment when he had to carry Daniel for as long as possible. After all, why give an exhausted man a helping hand when you can more easily keep shoving him in the back or whacking him round the head?

Teal'c murmured quietly, "Major Carter has a fever. Her temperature appears to be climbing rapidly."

As another lion guard jabbed him impatiently between the shoulder blades with a staff weapon, O'Neill said tautly, "Well, isn't that just the perfect end to a perfect day…?"

***

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