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