The Quality of Mercy

Part 3

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 Three

The Temple of Onuris was like Rome, Daniel thought: all the roads on this world led there. It was the sticky thread of the spider's web, the center of the maze, and however many times you thought you'd escaped it, you found yourself dragged back there, more shabby, scared, and exhausted than before. He could barely focus although he was aware of guards pulling and shoving him, remembered falling, being hauled up by the hair, falling again, then being cuffed around the head, shaken, slapped. Jack snarling a protest despite being so tired himself he could hardly stagger. Teal'c growling something in Goa'uld and then glowering in frustration as a zat gun was pointed not at him but at the unconscious teammate in his arms. He couldn't make it down this mountainside on his feet. He was going to have to -

Harun's arm around his waist jolted him back into sentience; the other man taking his weight, easing him forward. Daniel blinked in surprise, then turned his head to see other men going to help Jack, even when he snapped at them and shook them off, just going back and supporting him again. Daniel gave Jack a begging look; silently pleading with him to take the help they were offering him, to conserve whatever strength he could. Jack glared horribly but gave in, accepting help from the people who had betrayed them albeit with a very bad grace. Thinking of what was most likely awaiting them in that temple, Daniel had to swallow hard, before saying, "Thank you." When Harun flinched from his gratitude, refusing to meet his eye, it seemed only fitting. Daniel knew he should probably offer some reassurance that he understood the man's loyalty to that prophecy, and so his actions, but he couldn't. He could perhaps have offered absolution for his own death at Onuris' hands, but not for that of the others.

When he turned his head again to try to see how his teammates were faring, the night air ruffled his hair like a phantom hand, and he shivered.

Sam looked as she had when Jolinar had died inside her, fragile as frosted bridal wreath. But this time there were beads of sweat across her pale forehead and an ominous harshness to her breathing which Daniel recognized only too well: the sound of struggling lungs filling up with infection. As Daniel stumbled trying to look at her, to will her back to consciousness and health, he heard Jack murmur, "Teal'c?"

Teal'c shook his head. Daniel had thought he was cold before but suddenly he was shivering, every vein running with ice water. He closed his eyes and let Harun steer him through the dripping dark, listening to the echoes of their own footsteps and the metalshod thunder of the lion guards, but seeing and hearing only Sam's bleached skin, the sweat on her forehead, the laboring sound of her lungs.

The night had become even colder, and his breath was white against the darkness; every inhalation rasping his throat while overhead a million stars he didn't know the names of glittered at them indifferently. Several times he heard Jack stumble on the shale and then snap at the people helping him, but the anger was half-hearted, swamped with weariness. Defeat. He'd never heard Jack sound defeated before. Daniel was practically sleepwalking; Harun and another local who smelt of uncured goatskin, supporting him between them and guiding him over the uneven surface. Had they walked him over a cliff he would still have gone with them, and been only grateful for the long, quiet drop before he hit the ground.

But the sight of the temple penetrated the fog in his mind like a lighthouse beam. For the first time he remembered the morning properly. Gazing up at that temple from his safe place by Jack's shoulder, the alien stone and familiar structure calling to him through the mist. Sam and Teal'c had been barely ten feet away, fiddling with the DHD, safe and well. The worst problem Jack had been faced with then was boredom and the possibility of rain dripping down the back of his neck. Daniel's curiosity had killed all of them since then, they just weren't quite dead yet.

Daniel tried to recapture that brief moment of certainty he'd felt in the catacombs. The realization that if all they had ever done on this world was arrive, be captured, and die, they would have lingered in the minds of their 'followers' no longer than the lifespan of a dragonfly. It had comforted him then. But he couldn't snatch back his belief now. Guilt was overwhelming every other emotion and each time he caught a glimpse of Jack's taut, exhausted face, or Sam's fever-ridden form in Teal'c's arms, hope died inside him.

He couldn't repress a shudder as he entered the temple for the third time in less than twenty-four hours. The towering doorway looming menacingly overhead, all black straight lines like a guillotine. On the first journey across this threshold he'd found pain, on the second carnage. This time there could only be death.

Light blazed triumphantly through the ruins, giving a liquid gloss to every stain, the heat from all those torches only amplifying the stench of spilled blood and seared flesh, but this time Daniel was having a flashback that had nothing to do with Shokmar. Standing by a litter were two Goa'uld in magnificent robes; one male, one female, both beautiful as they were pitiless. They could have been Apophis and Amaunet. How much would I remember if you chose me? Something of the host must survive... The four plumes of the male told him this was Onuris even without the extra proof of the beard and lance, and that warrior's muscular physique. The two lions lying at the feet of the female proclaimed Onuris' mate to be Mehit. Oh wonderful, more belief systems colliding. Now he really was Daniel in the lions' den.

Everyone on the planet seemed to have been herded into the temple to watch them die. Most of the wounded had been removed; killed, Daniel suspected, although the priests were still in evidence, their hairless bodies very white in the torchlight. They had probably told the Jaffa which of the wounded to kill. And these were the men to whom he had pledged Jack's protection? Sometimes the depths of his own stupidity surprised even him. There was the sour stench of burnt skin and hair still lingering, and he imagined the Jaffa walking along those lines of wounded blasting them into oblivion. Buried in the catacombs dreaming of death, he would never have heard their screams.

Onuris turned upon them, gaze flicking dismissively across the other three before he saw Daniel – which was when his eyes glowed gold with recognition, anger, dislike, and perhaps a hint of fear. At once, he began to declaim in Goa'uld, his gaze never leaving Daniel's face.

Despite his exhaustion, Daniel recognized those words which had been so subtly altered from the Book of the Dead. The Chapter of Coming Forth Against Enemies in Khert-Neter. They seemed horribly appropriate. He automatically began to translate for the others: " I have come forth from the horizon against my enemies. I have not permitted him to escape from me. I have stretched out my hand. I have lifted up my feet. I have not permitted the enemy to be saved from me…"

"Daniel."

"… As for mine enemy, he hath been given to me, and he shall not be delivered from me. I walk with my legs. I speak with my mouth. I chase my enemy. He hath been given unto me, and he shall not be delivered from me…"

"Daniel!"

He jumped and turned to find Jack looking at him. The man said quietly, "Don't help him." Just for a second Daniel read the marrow-deep weariness in the older man's brown eyes and then Jack was straightening up, shaking off his helpers, digging some energy out from somewhere. Jack held up a hand. "Uh – sorry – Aneurin, or whatever the hell your name is, we don't actually speak the lingo, so if that was the Welcome To My World speech, I'm afraid we just missed it."

Jack's favorite magic trick. The one rabbit he could always pull out of the hat. A second before none of the other three had even existed for the Goa'uld, all of his attention had been focused on Daniel alone, but now Daniel was momentarily forgotten, and Jack was the one for whom his eyes were glowing with rage and dislike. Onuris said savagely, "Your insolence will not go unpunished."

"Well Apophis was always telling me stuff like that and you know what? He's dead. Incidentally, so is Sokar. Oh yes, and Hathor. And did I mention Ra?"

"Jack…" Daniel murmured.

"The thing is I am really tired, not to mention pissed off. Your planet sucks by the way. I hope you know that? And I'm really not in the mood to stand around and watch anyone playing god right now, so why don't we just tell the nice people on this world the truth about how there aren't any gods and then we can get the hell out of here?"

Onuris strode forward furiously. "You miserable insect! I am their god and your god. I am the only god!"

Jack shrugged. "Now see that's exactly what Ra kept telling everyone and it was a total crock when he said it too. Didn't help him one little bit when I shoved a nuclear missile up his ass either."

Daniel blinked, some of the exhaustion lifting enough for him to think. He stared at the Goa'uld in dawning realization. "That's why you didn't quote the whole passage. You missed out the parts that mention other gods: I stand up like Horus. I sit down like Ptah. I am strong like Thoth. I am mighty like Tem. You've done what Ra did. You've told these people you're the only one."

Jack addressed the assembled people, the clandestine worshippers of the Chosen One, the faithful followers of Onuris, the lion guards massed behind their god. "These people aren't gods. They're Goa'ulds – a race of parasites who have to live inside a human host to survive. I had one of the damned things inside of me once – didn't make me a god, just gave me a hell of a headache. Teal'c here used to serve another Goa'uld – now hopefully deceased. There's thousands of them all over the universe. They're treacherous, back-stabbing, lying, cheating scum, but what they're not are gods."

A ripple of horror and disbelief went around the temple at the man's blasphemy. It occurred to Daniel that someone was translating this. Correction, Harun was translating this, and the translation was being passed on so fast it traveled like a breeze through reeds.

Daniel murmured quietly, "Jack, you're sort of taking a crowbar to their belief system here, not to mention really seriously pissing off an already pretty hostile Goa'uld."

"Their belief system needs a crowbar taken to it, and pissing this guy off is the only hope we have right now. Haven't you ever heard of attack being the best form of defense?"

As a furious Onuris raised his hand with the ribbon device already glowing, Teal'c also addressed the assembled worshippers: "O'Neill speaks the truth. I was once First Prime of Apophis. My father was First Prime of Cronos. There are as many System lords and underlords as there are stars in your night sky. The one you call a god is not even one of the System Lords, and since the death of Ra his worlds are in danger of being taken by Heru'Ur, a more powerful Goa'uld with a greater army. Even the System Lords themselves are not safe from attack, and would have been overthrown by Sokar had it not been for my companions and myself."

Another ripple of unease went through the listeners. A few of the Jaffa shifted uncomfortably. O'Neill knew that at least some of those lion guards most know the truth, must have fought other Jaffa who followed other so-called gods.

"They are liars and blasphemers!" Mehit pointed at Daniel accusingly. "He is the false god, the one the foolish amongst you call the Chosen One, but he is nothing. He is less than nothing. He will die slowly, and his screams will linger in the echoes for eternity."

As Daniel winced, O'Neill stepped forward and looked around the wide-eyed multitudes. "Well she's right about one thing, Daniel isn't a god and he never claimed to be one. He's just a human being. Like me and you."

Onuris lowered his hand, surprise on his bearded face. "Then you admit he is a false god?"

"I admit he's a human being with no special powers whatsoever. But then he never claimed to be anything else. Unlike you."

Onuris smiled triumphantly. "The proofs of my divinity are written in letters of stone and in the truths of my great deeds." He waved a hand to indicate the temple, the pillars that remained all embossed with hieroglyphs detailing his divinity.

Teal'c quoted impassively: " 'Then King Darius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth, Peace be multiplied unto you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for he is the living God, and steadfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end.' "

"What?" O'Neill turned and frowned at him.

"What?" Daniel blinked.

"What words are these?" Onuris demanded.

Teal'c met the Goa'uld's gaze with cool contempt. "So it is written in the Bible of the Tau'ri. And yet it is also true that Daniel Jackson is not a god, even though their words state that he is one. Just because it is written does not make it true. But although he is not a god he is the Chosen One."

Teal'c's voice carried such calm certainty that O'Neill found himself believing it for the first time. Teal'c was right. Daniel was the Chosen One. The whole thing might be a screw up involving tears in the fabric of in the space time continuum so brain-meltingly complicated he didn't even want to think about, but Daniel still was the guy in that tablet he wouldn't translate for them, which made him at least as much of a 'god' as an alien parasite in a human host.

Onuris raised his hand again. "When they have watched their 'Chosen One' die they will know I am their only god."

"Ooh – bad move, on so many levels," O'Neill said quickly. "For one thing, the people here know what's going to happen next whereas I'm presuming you don't – which is kind of odd, really, if you're supposed to be a god, as I always thought you guys had that omniscience thing sewed up, but anyway – for all you know, according to their legends, the Chosen One got struck down by you in the temple with the hand device. So if you zap Daniel all you're going to be doing is proving he is the Chosen One. And for another thing, killing so-called deities only makes a martyr out of them. Two thousand years ago on our world this guy turned up claiming to be the son of God. At the time he only had a couple of hundred followers and if the Romans had just left him alone to perform the odd miracle and attend the occasional wedding, everyone would probably have forgotten all about him in no time. But no, they had to go ahead and crucify him, and what do you know, twenty centuries later, no one remembers who the Roman Gods were except for people like Daniel, while there's barely a country on the planet that doesn't have some of their population believing in Jesus Christ. And that's without even starting on Elvis and what dying did for his career."

Onuris hesitated and O'Neill just hoped the Goa'uld was getting the gist of what he and Teal'c were telling him. O'Neill added casually, "And incidentally, Ra's Jaffa already killed Daniel, so did Apophis', not to mention Apophis himself. I'm warning you, the guy takes a lot of killing."

Immediately another excited murmur went around the temple, like flame to gunpowder, a hiss of air and expectancy at this confirmation of the Chosen One's divinity.

"I will feed him to my lions," Mehit looked at Daniel with loathing. "Not that he will make them much of a meal. But when even his bones are licked clean, none then can believe him to be a god."

"Actually we have a tradition on our planet that you can't get eaten by lions if your name is Daniel," O'Neill told her airily. He nudged Daniel. "Daniel…?"

Daniel collected himself. "Um – that's sort of…true. It says in our Bible that King Darius was tricked by princes and presidents jealous of his preference for Daniel into issuing a decree which said anyone who asked a petition of any god or man except Darius himself should be cast into a den of lions. Daniel always prayed to God three times a day, which the conspirators knew, so they caught Daniel praying and took him before Darius, demanding that he condemn him. Darius did so, albeit very unwillingly, and Daniel was sealed into a den of lions. But the next morning when Darius went to the den and cried out to Daniel, Daniel answered him and assured him he was unhurt. An angel had shut the lions' mouths so they couldn't injure him because Daniel was innocent and had done no wrong."

" 'Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no manner of hurt was found upon him.' " Although Teal'c spoke impassively O'Neill thought he detected a certain satisfaction in the Jaffa's tone.

"Making feeding people called Daniel to lions traditionally something of a non-starter on our world," O'Neill added helpfully. Daniel had told him once the Ancient Egyptians set a lot of store by names. If the Goa'uld could be convinced the name 'Daniel' had a protection against lions automatically written into it, he was all for fostering that belief. Especially when there were two hungry-looking lionesses twenty feet away from his team.

As Mehit snarled in frustration he thought she looked more than ready to rip Daniel's throat out with her teeth herself. She turned to her mate and said furiously, "Why do they yet live? Why do you permit them to stand in the temple they have desecrated and still draw breath?"

Because, snakebitch, your old man knows that killing us could make the Chosen One cult even more powerful than it is now and as he's already lost a whole bunch of planets to Heru'Ur he doesn't want to lose this one too. O'Neill watched the Goa'uld narrowly. Onuris was a warrior on a losing streak who couldn't afford to come second in any more skirmishes even with people as unimportant as them. He knew what the guy needed: a plan to discredit all of them, but Daniel in particular; a way to show how powerless and unimportant they were that wouldn't accidentally fulfill any prophecies that might be lying around. A way to prove his way was the only way without making them into martyrs.

"It's always been a difficult question, hasn't it?" Daniel said quietly. "When is a god not a god? Do a million people believing you to be a god make you one? Your race certainly seems to think so. But in that case, how much of a god are you if the people stop believing? Are you still a god when the million followers dwindles to a few hundred thousand? What if it dwindles to a few hundred? Or to one? Or to no one? You had to leave our world, not because we buried the gate, but because we stopped believing in you. These days you don't even occupy the place of demons in our subconscious."

"That's true actually," O'Neill shrugged. "When it comes to nightmares, you guys have all been overtaken by Freddy Kreuger and Hannibal Lector."

Daniel looked at him sideways. "Who?"

"I'll explain it to you later." Always supposing there is a later for either of us.

Onuris looked around at the temple. There was an expectant silence and O'Neill hoped the Goa'uld was hearing what he was hearing: the listening hush of people who had already overheard and understood too much.

O'Neill risked another look at Carter, willing her to stir. Astonishingly, it worked. Her eyelids flickered and then opened. She blinked dazedly and then focused on him. "Colonel?"

"Sam!" Daniel sprang across to her before wincing and giving him an apologetic glance. O'Neill wondered how many times he'd told Daniel not to show visible concern for one of them in front of the enemy. It had to be in double figures by now anyway. He'd given him a top-up lecture before Netu and thought Daniel had finally grasped the principal of not making any move to help a wounded or imperiled comrade when the bad guys could see you. But it now seemed to have been forgotten again and unless Onuris was very slow on the uptake he would now know that a good way to make Daniel do what he wanted was to hurt Carter. Wonderful.

Counting to ten to stop himself biting Daniel's head off, O'Neill stuck his hands in his pockets and said as casually as he could manage it, "How are you feeling, Carter?"

"Weird." She blinked again and looked up at Teal'c then turned her head to see her position. "How long was I out?"

"Hours," O'Neill told her.

Teal'c gently set her on her feet but kept an arm around her shoulders. Which turned out to be a wise precaution. She swayed and Daniel would have taken her arm if O'Neill hadn't sent him his best flesh-stripping glare. Daniel shifted awkwardly and darted a glance over at the Goa'uld. O'Neill guessed by the stricken look on Daniel's face Onuris had been watching the whole show.

Carter put a hand up to her throat, murmuring huskily, "What happened?"

"Harun drugged you and me then sold us out to Onuris' Jaffa. We're now trying to persuade the resident snakehead that turning us into martyrs would not be a good idea. Oh yes, and try to bear in mind that on Earth 'Daniel' means 'someone who can't be eaten by lions' because this Goa'uld's better half seems to think Dannyboy would make good cat food."

"Actually it's 'Judged by God'."

"What?" O'Neill rocked on his heels, pushing his fists deeper into his pockets as he noted how ill she looked. Her eyes were red-rimmed and there were shadows beneath them. Her breathing sounded terrible.

"That's what 'Daniel' means, sir."

O'Neill darted a glance over at Onuris. "Well, under the circumstances, I think we'll keep that to ourselves."

Carter put a hand up to her head. She still looked very pale and it was obviously costing her a great effort to stay upright even with Teal'c's steadying hand. She glanced up at the Jaffa. "You carried me all the way from those caves?"

"It was no burden," Teal'c told her.

"That's not what my bathroom scales tell me. I owe you one, Teal'c."

He inclined his head gently, keeping the arm around her shoulders to hold her upright. She frowned. "Is it me, or is it very…blurry in here?"

O'Neill and Daniel exchanged an anxious glance before Daniel said quickly, "It's the smoke and the dust, Sam. It all looks blurry to me too."

Carter blinked and then swallowed. O'Neill could almost feel the grit in her eyes, the fish hook in her throat. Perhaps it was just flu. Flu could make you feel lousy as hell. He'd had a version of Asian flu in '85 that had sent his temperature up to a 103 and had him coughing up blood for two days but he'd still completed his mission and lived to tell the tale.

"The woman is awake, I see."

O'Neill hated the grating sound of Mehit's voice.

Carter faced her defiantly although O'Neill wasn't sure how much she could see. "I'm Major Samantha Carter of the SGC, and you would be…?"

The Goa'uld threw back her hair. It was so black it had blue lights in it and O'Neill hadn't seen so much eye make-up since he'd spent four hours waiting for a defector in a drag club in West Berlin. "I am the goddess Mehit."

Carter turned to Daniel with an enquiring expression on her face. "I don't know the name."

"She's pretty obscure. Anhur – Onuris was supposed to have brought her back from Nubia but the myth is very close to the Heliopolitan one describing Shu's pursuit of Tefnut, so I'd say they probably assumed both identities at various times. And their cult shifted around quite a lot, it started in the Thinite region of Middle Egypt but by the Late Period Onuris was being associated with the Delta site of Sebennytos, and by the Ptolemaic period he was indistinguishable from the Greek god of war, Ares."

"What - Xena's squeeze? That girl could do so much better." O'Neill sighed as he got another of those totally blank looks from Daniel. This boy had serious holes in his general knowledge which he really was going to have to help him fill in some day. He tried again, this time looking across at the two Goa'uld. "So, definitely minor league deities then?"

He hoped they'd overheard what Daniel had just said. Good. Seeing the glance they exchanged they'd definitely overheard what Daniel had just said. And unlike O'Neill, it would have made sense to them. It occurred to him for the first time that as the Goa'uld believed themselves to be gods, Daniel knowing so much about them might make them think he was a god himself, or at least someone of power. Either way they probably didn't want him talking about them as though Goa'uld like them were a dime a dozen. Watching the two Goa'uld approaching them, O'Neill said, "Daniel…"

"What?"

"I'd really appreciate a lecture on the Ancient Egyptian Gods." Daniel blinked at him and O'Neill was aware of Carter also staring at him in surprise. She was swaying a little with fever and Daniel was wavering with exhaustion but at least he'd got both their attention. He didn't need to look to guess Teal'c had a raised eyebrow as well. Speaking in a rapid undertone, O'Neill added, "And, Daniel, I'd like it now and I'd like at least some of it about these two."

Daniel was obviously too exhausted to work out why at the moment but he was also clearly too weary to start arguing or asking lots of questions. He slipped into lecture mode like a man putting on a favorite pair of slippers. "Well there's really very little known about Mehit. She was never a very popular goddess, like you said, not like Isis or Hathor, although the chapel of the spread wings in the Temple of Horus at Edfi is dedicated principally to Mehit I can't think of many others shrines that have survived...Both Mehit and Onuris are associated with Ra, of course, and were always considered loyal to him, and were also both associated with lions. But Aker was really the major Ancient Egyptian lion-god, while the Delta site of Taremu or Leontopolis – that's Tell el-Muqdam to you, Jack – was sacred to Mihos or Mysis, not Anhur. And of course Shu was also venerated in the form of a lion but most leonine deities were female…"

O'Neill didn't bother listening to Daniel, he just let the familiar litany of information flow over him as soothingly as milk over cookies while enjoying the Goa'uld's reaction to it. They had never been back to Earth, he presumed, and were baffled as to how this young man could know so much about them. And they must be able to hear those whispers as Daniel's words were translated for the benefit of their worshippers. You had to have mystery to be a god. Being told you were washed up and all but forgotten on a world that used to venerate you probably never made happy listening.

"…the most important of the lion goddesses was Sekhmet, but even her cult was eventually merged with those of Bastet and Mut. Because in one myth Sekhmet was sent by Ra to destroy mankind and very nearly succeeded, there were a lot of temples built to propitiate her and stop her wreaking vengeance on the human race a second time…"

O'Neill realized he had pressed the right button. Daniel could literally do this in his sleep, which was just as well, because very little of Daniel still appeared to be conscious, but his brain was ticking over on automatic lecture pilot and his lips were moving, that was all that mattered. The Goa'uld were getting seriously twitchy now. They were looking more and more uncomfortable and their whispered consultation was becoming louder and more ragged.

"…But, of course, after the rise to power of the Theban rulers of the New Kingdom, the Theban triad – that's Amun, Mut, and Khons, became more important and so began to effectively 'absorb' the attributes of other deities. This merging of the gods and goddesses makes it difficult to know where one begins and one ends so it could be that Mehit is also Tefnut, making her the mother of Geb and Nut, but Tefnut was also associated with Wadjyt – as was Sekhmet – in her leonine form, although Wadjyt was originally depicted as a cobra-goddess, and it was in this form that she and the vulture goddess Nekhbet were described as the nebty who symbolized the essential duality of the Egyptian world…"

"Enough!" Onuris snapped.

And even though he'd asked for this particular lecture that was about as much as O'Neill could take as well. He put a hand on Daniel's shoulder to stem the outpouring of information as Onuris and Mehit both strode across to confront their prisoners, the Goa'uld waving aside the lion-guards who made to accompany them with an impatient flick of the hand. O'Neill made his face a careful blank as he and the Goa'uld stared into each other's eyes, warriors sizing up the opposition; a real Sergio Leone moment but he wasn't feeling much like Clint Eastwood today. In close-up Onuris looked around forty and one step away from a Las Vegas stage magician with his long pointed beard and that frankly ridiculous head-dress. But there was a lot of intelligence in those kohl-painted eyes and O'Neill had learned a long time ago never to underestimate an enemy.

He gave Onuris his best false smile and said, "What, you didn't find that interesting? Now, see I always find that kind of thing fascinating, and luckily Daniel can talk about dead gods for hours. There's nothing this boy doesn't know about Ancient Egyptian myths. All those gods in all their different forms no one believes in any more. Daniel can tell anyone who wants to know everything about them."

Onuris looked into O'Neill's eyes and said softly, "The one you call 'Daniel' will be silent or I will cut out his tongue."

"That won't stop people remembering what he said. The truth's out now and everyone in this temple knows Goa'uld like you and Catwoman here were all over our world like a rash a few thousand years back. All of you chasing hosts like they were going out of style. That's why you had to start taking humans through the gate, wasn't it? You needed your own supplies of hosts to give yourselves incubators for your kids and to grow your own Jaffa. And now even the universe isn't big enough for you people because you're still the same greedy, squabbling megalomaniacs you always were, and Heru'Ur is squeezing you out."

O'Neill shrugged as casually as he could. He couldn't believe they were still letting him talk but they seemed stunned. Perhaps they just weren't used to dealing with humans with this kind of attitude. "Now, this world sucks so much I'm surprised you even want it, but I figure you're like Apophis – backs against the wall and needing to hang onto every planet you've got. You kill everyone on this world who believes in the Chosen One, there won't be enough people left to scrape up an army if you need one. And, of course, if you kill the Chosen One, people are going to believe in him harder than ever."

"In time they will forget him," Mehit said furiously, eyes flashing gold again. Her gaze darted towards Daniel with contemptuous loathing. "When his bones are dust."

"You don't know that," Carter said huskily. "On our world there are a million churches in the names of saints who died ten centuries ago."

"You left their world several thousand years ago," Teal'c put in. "Yet your names are still remembered by a few of the scholars who reside there. I have seen the names of dead Goa'uld in the books of Daniel Jackson that even your race has forgotten. The people of the Tau'ri have long memories."

Although glad of the support, O'Neill didn't look away from Onuris, holding the Goa'uld's gaze. "Time is something you don't have. You need these people to stop believing in him now. Do you want to know the best way to do that?"

"Tell me," Onuris' voice dripped with sarcasm but he was still listening and Daniel was still breathing.

"Send him home. Send us all home. There's nothing like an anti-climax for disappointing people hoping for a miracle. The Chosen One turns up, gets caught, gets kicked back through the 'gate. Who the hell is going to get excited about that?"

For a moment he saw the Goa'uld hesitate and wondered if he'd managed to bluff him but then Onuris smiled coldly. "For a human you are less stupid than one might expect."

"I'll try to take that as a compliment."

"Let no one say the god Onuris is not merciful. I will give your companion the chance to save himself from the consequences of his blasphemy."

O'Neill's jaw tightened. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the options the Goa'uld offered Daniel. "Generous of you."

Onuris stretched out a hand and stroked a finger down the side of Daniel's face. "My priests tortured you, yes?"

Daniel met his gaze. "I don't remember."

"They used Shokmar upon you? The pain was like nothing you had ever known before. You screamed for help that did not come as the agony stole your mind."

Stolidly Daniel repeated, "I don't remember."

"They remember. They have told me everything." Onuris glanced at O'Neill. "You saved him through some technology you carry with you?"

O'Neill shrugged. "That would be telling."

Onuris gestured to the Jaffa who flanked them. "Remove their belongings." The lion guards collected up their packs and weapons and carried them over to the base of the broken statue, leaving only Daniel's vest. Onuris turned back to O'Neill with a thin smile. "This time you will not be able to save him."

He'd known this moment would come but that didn't stop the sick feeling inside him. They were going to torture Daniel in front of him. Payback for all the people he'd killed throughout the years, all the blood he'd shed, the lives he'd stolen. Somehow he'd thought Hell was as bad it got; that having survived his son dying and Netu, he could survive anything. And on the surface he'd survive this, if Onuris wanted him to. He'd stand here – no, he'd probably struggle like a madman – but essentially he'd watch while Daniel died by inches; and then he'd go back and make his report to General Hammond. Then he'd retire. Then he'd die inside. That was the extent to which he would survive.

Carter was arguing with Mehit, throwing reason at the Goa'uld despite the rawness of her throat. She sounded terrible. Every word must be like swallowing ground glass, and it wasn't making any difference. He'd seen the look of triumph in Onuris' eyes: the expression of someone who'd just hit upon a winning strategy.

"Can't you see that you're just reinforcing the prophecy by…?"

Carter had told him once the universe was full of dark matter. At the time it had made him think of the Goa'uld. Now it felt like it had all just collected inside him.

Onuris wheeled around to address the tiers of silent worshippers. "Witness the mercy of your God! Witness the power of your God! You have seen us take life from the unworthy. Now you shall see us restore it to the faithful." He nodded to Mehit and she clapped her hands.

Two Jaffa came forward carrying someone on a makeshift litter. O'Neill recognized the High Priest, still dying by degrees but not yet dead. He'd seen soldiers this badly injured in the field; the ones maimed by hand grenade, mortar or bomb blasts, so mangled inside, so far beyond repair, you wished they'd just die.

"Oh God…" Daniel murmured, turning his head away. "He's still alive."

Mehit walked around the litter and O'Neill swore he could hear her purring as loudly as her lionesses. "You have served us well, Rahotep. Your loyalty shall not go unrewarded." She lifted her right hand and O'Neill saw the Goa'uld healing device glowing in her palm. She turned to address the worshippers in their silent tiers. "See how your goddess gives back life." She repeated the words in Goa'uld and then turned back to the High Priest.  The light from the healing device reflected a glowing circle on his white hairless forehead and then played down his body, which tensed then arced in response. He cried out and Daniel flinched, then Rahotep's skin glowed gold as the healing device did its work. When Mehit stepped back she was smiling triumphantly and the High Priest was staring at his unbroken skin in disbelief. He sat up and pulled open his tunic so everyone could see how his wounds were healed.

The gasp from the worshippers made O'Neill grit his teeth. He had to admit that as parlor tricks went, bringing the mortally wounded back from the dead was an impressive one.

Onuris stepped forward, something in his hands that looked a little like a zatgun. The way Daniel flinched when he saw it told O'Neill what it was. The sick feeling was very bad now. Like someone had wrapped his intestines around a big stone before dropping them off a cliff. The Goa'uld was going to give it to the High Priest and the guy was going to take his revenge on Daniel. And he was going to have to stand here and watch it. He was aware of Teal'c tensing to spring, muscles bunching in readiness, the lion guards closing in to restrain him.

Onuris held out the Shokmar device to Daniel. "Take it."

Daniel blinked in surprise. "What?"

The Goa'uld smiled cruelly. "I am offering you this last escape. Only the priests of this temple may wield this device. If you use it upon them, they cannot use it upon you. Your choice." He turned and snapped his fingers and lion guards dragged forward the other two priests. Both of them were trembling with fear. O'Neill remembered Daniel pledging them his protection and closed his eyes.

"No." Daniel took a step back into the lion guards who were hovering in readiness. They pushed him forward again and he stumbled but glared defiantly at the Goa'uld. His voice was quiet but very sure: "I won't do it."

"Either you turn the wrath of Shokmar upon the priests of this temple or else they shall turn it upon you."

"Then they'll have to turn it upon me. I'm not doing that to anyone."

"So you do remember?"

His jaw tensed but he just shook his head.

Onuris was remorseless. "You begged them for mercy but they showed you none. For hours they tortured you and remained indifferent to your screams. Do you not want revenge for what they did to you?"

"No."

O'Neill could see where this was going and it was nowhere he liked the look of. He said abruptly, "I'll do it."

Onuris turned to look at him in surprise. "You?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Daniel's squeamish. I'm not. He has an over-active conscience. I don't. The sons of bitches tortured my teammate for hours and hours. I'm quite happy to give them a taste of their own medicine." He met Onuris' thoughtful gaze. "You want proof we're not angels? I'll give it to you. I'm a soldier, just like you. We do whatever's necessary to survive."

"Jack?"

"Shut up, Daniel." He didn't look at him, gaze never leaving Onuris' face. O'Neill held out a hand. "I'll do it."

There was only a momentary hesitation and then Onuris smiled and handed over the device. He said amusedly, "It will not work on me."

"I guessed that." O'Neill turned to face the High Priest. He said softly, "For how many hours did you torture Daniel?" As the man looked blank, he turned his head. "Daniel. Translate."

"Jack, I really don't think…"

"Daniel, do as I damn well tell you!"

Daniel flinched, glared at him for making him flinch, then reluctantly murmured something to the High Priest in Goa'uld. Rahotep faced him contemptuously before turning to look at O'Neill. His answer, incomprehensible though it was to O'Neill, dripped with disdain.

"What did he say?" O'Neill turned on Daniel as he didn't answer him. "Daniel? What did he say?"

Daniel moistened his lip before murmuring unhappily, "He said: Not enough."

"Right. I would definitely say that constituted 'asking for it'." As O'Neill raised the zatgun he was very aware of the disappointment in Carter's blue eyes, the sorrow in Daniel's, the unreadable expression on Teal'c's face. He could feel Daniel willing him not to do this; more than that, unable to believe that he would do it. There were days when he really wanted to open Daniel's eyes.

But this wasn't one of them.

As O'Neill leveled the shokmar device on the High Priest, the lion guards automatically took a step back. Giving him the second's grace he needed to pull back his arm and hurl the damned thing at the temple wall with all his strength.

He'd been afraid it might not break, but the device shattered like fine crystal, fragments splintering and some inner filament snapping in two in a way he fervently hoped was irreparable. As the pieces landed on the floor of the temple with a sound like hail there was another audible gasp from the watchers.

The backhand from Onuris stung but as he straightened back up with a hand to his face, O'Neill felt it was definitely worth it for the relief and approval in those two pairs of blue eyes.

"Good thinking, Colonel," Carter said hoarsely.

Snarling, Onuris raised his hand, ribbon device glowing and turned it upon the High Priest. As the man cried out and began to sink to his knees. Onuris said shortly. "We can bring life and we can bring death. Those who follow the false god can bring only death."

"These are people ," Daniel protested. "You can't just kill them and then bring them back to life to demonstrate your powers. You don't have the right."

"I have every right." Onuris snarled it at him over his shoulder as Rahotep fell to the ground, blood trickling from his ears and barely breathing. "They are my subjects. They belong to me. Not to you."

"They don't belong to anyone," Daniel retorted. "You have no right to enslave them."

Onuris stepped back and the priest slumped at his feet. He lowered his hand. "You brought him death and we brought him life. Now we have brought him to the point of death. Can you or your – avatars bring him life?"

Daniel looked at him with loathing. "No. No, we can't, as you – "

"Yes, we can." Carter stepped forward and held out her hand. "Give me the healing device."

O'Neill knew what using the healing device had cost her last time. He'd found her passed out in the corridor after she'd used the thing to save Cronos from his injuries, and he'd banned her from using it again. If the sarcophagus sucked out part of your soul as it restored you, the healing device stole a piece of your vitality when you used it to help others. "Carter, I'm not sure that's a very – "

She faced him and he winced as he saw the fever flush to her cheeks, the shadows under her eyes. He didn't even want to guess what her temperature was right now. She said hoarsely, "Colonel, I don't think we have a choice. We're already enough of a threat to warrant killing. We have to be so much of a threat they're afraid to make us into martyrs. You know that yourself." She didn't need to add This is your strategy we're going with here, but nevertheless it was true. And if Carter could bring the High Priest back to life as effectively as Mehit had done, a lot of the Goa'uld's claim to being special was left hanging like a corpse on a gallows. If the Goa'uld could only restore life because they were gods then Carter could only restore life because she was an avatar of the Chosen One, and killing Daniel just got that much more problematic.

O'Neill bit his lip. "I know that, Carter, but if you try this and can't do it, we could lose all the ground we just made."

Mehit contemptuously slapped the healing device into Carter's hand, hissing malevolently, "You are not a goddess. You are slave stock. You are nothing."

Carter returned her gaze levelly. "Actually I'm a doctor of astrophysics and a major in the United States Air Force. And I didn't need to steal a body from anyone else to achieve it."

She slipped the hand device onto her right hand and then walked over to where the High Priest lay on his litter, blood trickling from his mouth, shock in his eyes. Carter wondered what that did to your body being pulled from death into life and then thrown back to the brink again. She could remember looking at the readings of Daniel's body chemistry after he'd been addicted to the sarcophagus, Janet showing her the usual endorphin levels and then the deranged spike on the graph that was Daniel's current reading. Every cell out of synch and fighting its neighbors. But he'd got better. The human body was a miraculous thing and its magnetic north was always good health; that was the point it strived to get back to. All the Goa'uld technology did was help it to achieve goals it was already reaching for. She could do this. Every joint in her body was aching like a new kind of biology lesson. She now knew for certain the knee bone connected to the thighbone because she could feel the pain from her knee joint sliding along her thigh to throw a grappling iron of agony into her hip. Every drop of fluid in her spine seemed to be on fire. Movement was so painful it made her want to whimper. She could feel infection crashing through her system like a tsunami overwhelming a coastal village while her temperature climbed like the noonday sun in Nevada. Her eyesight was blurring and her brain felt as though someone had encased it in bubblewrap.

All of which was good, she reminded herself firmly, as she stood over the High Priest and looked down at him. There was something faintly repulsive about the extreme whiteness of his skin. Something even more repulsive about his continuing willingness to torture Daniel for no reason. But he had just become the possible means of their salvation, and the fact she was so ill she could barely stand meant Jolinar's memories were far easier to access than usual. It had taken near death from starvation and exhaustion in those naqadah mines to unearth the dead Tok'ra's memories within her in the first place; they had never been as clear afterwards; just scattered fragments in dreams; until Martouf and the memory device had opened the floodgates to all the good and bad things which Jolinar had ever known or experienced.

Half-dead was a good way to be when you needed to access the sleeping memories of the Tok'ra who had died to save you. Half-dead was exactly what they all needed her to be right now. Really, Carter told herself firmly as she swayed and the High Priest blurred in and out of focus, she needed to look on this illness as a case of serendipity. She closed her eyes and let herself slip into the dream state where their identities blurred; two different-colored liquids poured into a tumbler of clear water, twining around each other like sea snakes, the real and the unreal, the human and the Tok'ra, the dead and the living. In Netu there were times when she could no longer remember who was Samantha Carter and who was Jolinar. She'd been afraid of slipping into that blended state forever. Now it hardly seemed to matter.

The light flared and she felt something torn from within her. It hadn't hurt the last time, but when she'd saved Cronos she'd been fit and well. This time she was all too aware of how much energy the hand device sucked from the healer. Energy she didn't have to give.

It was like the opposite of an orgasm, something licking up from her feet through the nerve-endings like an absenceof sensation; an emptiness. She was pouring herself into the light of the hand device and it was feeding her life force to the man who had tortured Daniel to the brink of madness. She could feel herself hollowing out inside as he became stronger. It was a shock when she forced her gritty eyes open to find that she wasn't really transparent, that she couldn't yet see the bones through her skin.

She found the High Priest staring at her aghast. She couldn't recognized his expression at first. There was horror, certainly, but more than horror, there was something unexpected. She swayed and suddenly there were arms holding her up.

"Easy, Major…" The Colonel's voice was as familiar as it was comforting.

She swallowed painfully, her tonsils feeling like pool balls. "Did it work?"

"Oh the gracious goddess Mehit is not a happy camper."

Daniel watched Jack squeeze Sam's shoulder approvingly and tried and failed not to smile. He guessed sometimes actions did speak louder than words. All his Egyptian lore, Teal'c's quotations from the Bible, and Jack's button-pushing, had won them some time certainly, but Sam raising a man from the dead with technology only a goddess was supposed to be able to use had undermined Onuris and his mate more effectively than a thousand skilful arguments.

He'd thought they might possibly see compassion in the High Priest's eyes. He found it hard to believe anyone was completely devoid of compassion. But he'd never dared even hope for doubt. Rahotep was looking between Mehit and Carter. The beautiful goddess with the lion headdress and gorgeous silken robes, and the shabby Air Force Major, swaying with fever, lips cracking, skin white with exhaustion beneath a faint dusting of dirt. Both had restored him to life. Mehit's gamble had just paid off spectacularly for the opposition.

"Way to go Sam," he said softly.

"I'm not so sure," she nodded her head in the direction of the furious Mehit and the Goa'uld's bearded mate. There was a worrying stillness about Onuris. He reminded Daniel of a cobra in the second as it waits to strike. "They might just think we've all lived too long."

"That is possible," Teal'c admitted gravely. "They may decide the knowledge we have of the Goa'uld coupled with Major Carter's ability to use Goa'uld technology makes us too dangerous not to kill."

Onuris strode towards them and Daniel read both rage and fear in the Goa'uld's dark eyes. His gaze was fixed on Daniel and his intentions did not appear to be friendly. The lion guards seized Teal'c before he could spring to his teammate's defense. Jack stepped in front of Daniel with his hands up in a placatory manner. "Look, let's just talk about…"

But Daniel could hear what the watchers were saying. Their shock and disbelief turning to dawning doubt. And hope. They had just watched Sam save the life of the man who had tried to kill him. He could imagine how that translated into the language of prophecy. That was why she was called Compassion. She was the angel who had raised the torturer of the Chosen One from the dead. This had already been written. The people Onuris needed to worship him as a god had just seen a prophecy come true right in front of him. Fate was closing around all of them like a net.

When Onuris grabbed Jack by the shoulder of his jacket and yanked him out of the way as though he weighed less than a child, Daniel wasn't even surprised. When the Goa'uld seized him by the hair and dragged him into the center of the temple he didn't bother struggling. They'd put up a good show for the faithful anyway. Sowed a whole field of seeds of doubt. Daniel was going to die bitterly regretting the way his curiosity had condemned his friends to death, but there was at least that faint silver lining of knowing the days of Onuris' reign were probably numbered.

Onuris tightened his grip; yanking Daniel's head back cruelly.

"Ow!" Daniel said pointedly.

Still holding him, Onuris turned a slow circle, dragging Daniel after him. He raised his voice so the worshippers could hear him. "This – boy is not a god."

"I never said I was," Daniel murmured.

"His followers are not avatars."

"They never said they were either. Peaceful explorers was all we ever claimed to be."

"The one you call the Chosen One has no power of any kind and I will prove it to you. If he cannot save his own companions, how then can he save you?"

"No," Daniel said tautly. "Whatever you're planning. Don't. It's already written. Everything you do or I do or either of us tries to do. It's chiseled in stone and we can't change it. Anything you do will end up fulfilling a prophecy that proves you're not a – No…!"

He read Onuris' sudden resolution in those glowing eyes and abruptly he was in hell again. His throat was burning, his skin was burning, he could hear the groans of the dying and the shrieks of the damned, Sam's father was fading minute by minute while she had to stand there and watch it. They were coming for her and he couldn't stop them. Even Jack couldn't stop them.

"Jack – !" He yelled the warning as Onuris backhanded him to the floor. Everything slowed down. There was so much time and no time. He knew exactly what the Goa'uld was going to do and he still couldn't stop it. He'd seen this before. Already lived this moment. Onuris had snatched a staff weapon from a lion guard and the weapon's maw was opening, there was the fizz of it charging, light flaring, the roar as it fired. Sam calling out something, her voice so hoarse he couldn't make sense of the words. Teal'c shouting "O'Neill!"

Jack cried out as he crumpled, clutching his thigh; then hit the ground, face twisted in agony while his leg smoldered. He swore horribly, putting a hand up to his face as he rolled over, trying to escape the pain and not succeeding. With Daniel also lying on the ground they were at eye-level. Daniel could smell the older man's skin burning as the wound cauterized, read for himself in Jack's eyes how very much it hurt. He tried to say "I'm sorry…" but the words couldn't find a way out past the lump in his throat.

Onuris smiled and threw the staff weapon back to the lion guard, then bent and seized Daniel by the collar of his jacket, yanking him to his feet again. "I will prove you are not a god," the Goa'uld said softly. "I will set you a task a god could accomplish and you will fail. The people of this world shall witness your failure. They will see that I am the only god."

"Don't do this," Daniel said quietly. "My friends have done you no harm. Kill me if you have to, but let them go."

Onuris dragged him into the very center of the temple. He looked up and Daniel followed his gaze. As he saw the transportation rings his sense of déjŕ vu became stronger. Onuris raised his voice. "The woman who pretends to be a goddess is dying. The fever she was given will kill her."

There was a murmur of dismay from the watchers, a sense of them pressing forward, being halted by lion guards. Onuris seemed to sense it too. Daniel felt the Goa'uld's fingers tighten on his collar in annoyance. Onuris continued, "I will set this Chosen One a task and if he fulfils it, I will save the woman."

"What task?" said Daniel wearily.

Onuris snapped his fingers and lion guards bent and seized Jack by the arms. Daniel winced as the man's cry of pain hissed across the temple, but then his eyes widened as they dragged Jack towards him.

The Goa'uld was looking around at the listening worshippers, and in the sudden quiet before he made his next pronouncement, Daniel could hear the harsh sound of Jack's breathing as the lion guards manhandled him across the flagstones, the pain clearly catching in his throat every time his foot made contact with the floor. He looked across at Sam, and saw Teal'c was having to support her with an arm around her shoulders. She looked so drained it already seemed like a miracle she was still conscious. But it sounded as though Onuris wanted more circus tricks. Daniel felt hands close on his shoulders and then he was being shown to the populace, turned in a slow circle so everyone could look upon him one last time.

"If this false god, burdened by his false avatar – who you witness can be wounded like any mortal man – manages to return to the temple he has desecrated within two nights from this one, I will spare his life and save the one you call Compassion. If he does not return, then the woman will be left to die of her fever and the shol'va will be put to death."

Daniel mustered the last of his energy. "I told you I'm not a god. We both know I can't possibly…"

"Be silent!" Onuris hissed, eyes glowing gold as he wrenched Jack from the lion guards and shoved him roughly at Daniel.

"You son-of-a – "

Daniel staggered under Jack's weight but caught him. He steadied him as well as he could, tightening his grip on his shoulder to suggest that maybe insulting the Goa'uld wasn't the best idea the man could have right now.

Jack had his teeth gritted and was looking at Onuris with both loathing and promise. "You are so dead, you know that?"

Onuris gave him a contemptuous glance before turning to address the worshippers again. "Witness the reason and justice of your deity. I am giving this false god every chance to prove his divinity and that of his avatars. If he returns by nightfall of the second day then all will be well with him and his followers. If he does not return, these two who have been left behind will pay the price for his treachery, and any of you who follow him shall join them on the funeral pyre. But fear not, when his falseness is proven, you will be given the chance to reaffirm your loyalty and love to your true god. The one god. The only god. Onuris!" His eyes glowed triumphantly but as he turned back to Daniel he hissed too softly for the worshippers to overhear, "If you dare return here, I will give you to my Jaffa."

Daniel was still wincing from the look in the Goa'uld's eyes when Mehit's taloned fingers closed on his arm and dug deep into the skin. With an effort he dragged his gaze away from Onuris' hypnotic stare to meet the loathing in her kohl-painted eyes. Her voice was soft with hatred as the torchlight picked out the links of the golden chain attached to her lionesses' collars: "And when they are done with you, I will feed your still-living remains to my pets."

"Oh that's nice," Jack said breathlessly. "That's real classy. Tell me, what actually happens if you guys accidentally tell the truth? Does your throat close over or something?"

They were both thrown into the circle beneath the transport rings, Daniel just grabbing Jack in time to stop him falling. He held onto him tighter as the first ring fell, as light glowed. Through the descending metal circles he had his last look at Teal'c's set face, at Sam's exhausted one. The friends he couldn't possibly save, who were going to die because of him. As light engulfed them, he closed his eyes and held onto Jack as though he was all he had left in the world.

***

Teal'c's greatest fear was that they would separate him from Major Carter. Although she was fighting to stay on her feet, he knew how ill she truly was, could feel the fever emanating from her like heat rising from desert sand as her temperature climbed higher and higher. Using the healing device had greatly weakened her resistance to infection and he could almost picture the illness taking gleeful hold of her system. As the rings ascended, taking O'Neill and Daniel Jackson with them, she swayed and would have fallen if he had not caught her.

"I'm okay, Teal'c, just a little…dizzy."

She had a hand pressed to her head and was barely clinging onto consciousness. Teal'c saw the distress he felt mirrored in the eyes of Harun who was still hovering close to them. Bending his head as though to talk to Major Carter he whispered urgently to the man, "The medicine she needs is with our equipment." He had no way of telling if Harun understood what he said or would feel inclined to act on it.

The High Priest was also gazing at them. The hatred had gone from his face. So had the certainty. Teal'c recognized the look in the man's eyes because he knew what it was to have doubt forced upon you when life would be so much easier if you could just continue to believe. Had the man not tortured Daniel Jackson, Teal'c might even have pitied him.

"Take them away." Onuris clapped his hands, and lion guards made to seize him. Teal'c shook them off contemptuously, fixing those nearest with a gaze promising what he would do to those who manhandled his companion. That expression had served him well when he was First Prime of Apophis and it made them take a step back now. He put an arm around Major Carter's shoulders and she leant against him, clearly very glad of his support. Her lips cracked as she murmured, "Is it me or is getting very hot in here, Teal'c?"

Giving the nearest Jaffa another look warning them to keep their distance, Teal'c tightened his grip on her, saying gently, "It is indeed growing somewhat warmer, Major Carter."

She managed a faint smile. "You need to practice that lying a bit more, Teal'c. I don't think you've quite got the hang of it yet."

"I will endeavor to do so," he assured her.

The over-muscled seven foot First Prime of Onuris jabbed his staff weapon at Teal'c, the Jaffa giving him a quelling glance before easing his teammate in the direction their guard had indicated. She went where he directed, clearly very much in need of his arm around her shoulders, and he steered her gently across the temple. As he drew level with Onuris, Teal'c met the other's kohl-painted gaze and said, "Heru'Ur will take this world from you and none of the System Lords will aid you against him. You might be wise to ally yourself with the Tok'ra and the Tauri –"

"I said take them away. Now!" The Goa'uld's eyes glowed gold with fury and Teal'c gave him a look of contempt.

Surrounded by lion guards but not actually bound or touched by any of them, they were marched through the concealed doorway from which a shokmared Daniel Jackson had been escorted all those hours before. The corridors were featureless rectangles lit by smoking torches, every stone block fitted perfectly against its fellows, all fashioned from the same strange black stone which had blocked their radio transmissions as easily as it had muffled Daniel Jackson's screams.

As they passed one chamber lit by the fire from a grate, Teal'c saw a form of altar with metal cuffs at each corner. Anger flared as he realized this was the room in which Daniel Jackson had been tortured. He was trying not to think of the young scholar or O'Neill, hoping the transport rings had taken them somewhere safer than here. For now his duty was clear – to endeavor to protect Major Carter in any way he could.

As they were shoved roughly into a small chamber, the door slamming closed behind them with echoing finality, he tightened his grip to stop her falling, then helped her over to the corner. Apart from some straw and a pitcher of water, the cell was empty and cold, the only illumination from distant stars, their chill light a faint glimmer through a small barred window set too high for even him to reach. He helped Major Carter to lie down on the straw as he had earlier helped Daniel Jackson lie down in the cave, wishing vainly for the emergency blanket they had been forced to leave behind in their flight from the caverns. He took off his jacket and laid it over her, the cold stinging his bare arms at once. Her eyes were closing even as she touched the ground but as she dozed off she murmured drowsily, "Don't take this the wrong way, Teal'c, but I'm glad you're here."

As she drifted into a feverish sleep, he rested a hand gently on her head, saying quietly, "So am I."

***

Despite the fire in his leg, O'Neill tried to focus on their surroundings. The rings had descended, dumped him and Daniel, and then vanished, taking light with them. In the eye blink of illumination the transport rings had cast upon the walls he'd seen only a greenish darkness. Now there was nothing to see except blackness. Straining his ears, he realized there was also nothing to hear except their own breathing – slightly accelerated, he noticed, in Daniel's case, ragged with the pain it was trying to filter out in his own. But he knew where they were. There was no magic trick involved. He knew where they were because they'd just been in the same damned surroundings and he could recognize the signs. They were in a cave. A cold, damp one. He wondered if it had any exits or if the ever-merciful Onuris had just banished them to a locked box.

"Are you okay?"

He didn't ask Daniel why he was whispering. When it was black as wet asphalt and you might as well have had your head in a sack, keeping your voice down was a sensible precaution. But this time he thought it was an unnecessary one. Years spent in Special Forces had given him a pretty good instinct for when there were people – or animals – close at hand, and the only thing he could smell right now apart from his own blood was a reminder that Doctor Daniel Jackson was in serious need of a shower.

"Jack?"

"As well as can be expected. What about you?" The stab of light was skewering and he put up a hand instinctively. "Damnit, Daniel!"

"Sorry." Daniel turned away from him, letting the beam from his flashlight cut through the shadows, turning the cave from soot-black to chill blue. The water running down the walls glistened at them coldly.

O'Neill opened his mouth to give Daniel the lecture about why you didn't give away your position to possible hostiles by flashing light about until you had ascertained…And then thought what the hell. He'd already decided there was no one here except them. It would make more sense to praise Daniel for hanging onto his flashlight and vest rather than bawling him out for using it to check out their current situation. He followed the beam of light and saw folds of dark rock, a lot of greenish slime, and…an opening in the rock. Good. Maybe it only led into another cave but at least they weren't going to be stuck here. Daniel pointed the flashlight at the ceiling and there were the circles waiting to descend and whisk them back to the temple, but if there was a mechanism for summoning them it was very well hidden.

He'd thought those rings could only go up or down; spaceship to ground; floor to dungeon kind of deal, but now it seemed they also worked like a giant slinky, flipping you from one part of the planet to another. He wondered what happened if the power system failed halfway. Did you fall out and rematerialize, or did you never get all your bits back, and just stay a whole bunch of little swirling atoms forever? If Carter had come along for this particular ride she could have bored him senseless speculating on that very subject. Just as well he only had Daniel with him, who was as clueless as he was when it come to naqadah-powered Goa'uld whirligigs.

It occurred to O'Neill that Onuris had known what he was doing when the Goa'uld divided up his team. Teal'c and Carter both understood Goa'uld technology, could make it work, even hotwire it if they had to. Daniel could speak, write, and read the language, but he knew as little about Goa'uld equipment as O'Neill. Carter or Teal'c might have been able to get those rings to spirit them somewhere else but unless the last Goa'uld who'd used them had left an instruction manual, he and Daniel were going to be out of luck.

He and Daniel both gazed up at the rings for a moment and then met each other's gaze. O'Neill read in Daniel's blue eyes the same rueful embarrassment he was currently feeling about always leaving this kind of thing up to Carter. Daniel sighed and dejectedly began to shine the flashlight along the walls. "There was that panel thing in Bynarr's quarters…"

"Yes." O'Neill put a hand on his arm and tilted the flashlight beam down. "Which Martouf knew how to fix to make it work without the key – thing. We don't."

"Maybe if we found it, we could figure it out."

"Not in time." O'Neill didn't say Daniel, I've watched you change a fuse, remember? But he hoped commonsense would reassert itself in time. Fiddling around with Goa'uld toys was not their strong suit. You had to play to your strengths in survival situations. And this was definitely a survival situation.

"I'm sorry about your leg. Actually, I'm sorry about…" Daniel looked around helplessly. "This is all my fault."

"Daniel!" Pain roughened his tone and the younger man jumped slightly. O'Neill collected himself, taking a deep breath. "Look, we don't have time for this now. What's done is done, let's just deal with it."

"I should never have – "

He grabbed him by the arm, steadying himself with a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "a) That doesn't help, and b) It's written in goddamn stone, Daniel. It's been written for centuries. Like Teal'c said, if we hadn't got captured on Chulak, he'd still be First Prime of Apophis, and if you hadn't gone to that temple – "

"You wouldn't have been shot in the leg, Sam wouldn't be dying of a fever, and Teal'c wouldn't be under a death sentence. Oh yes, and you and I wouldn't be stuck on an alien planet with no way of helping Sam and Teal'c. Apart from that, I think it was probably one of my better ideas."

O'Neill sighed in exasperation. "You're the one who said it. They wouldn't have been waiting for us all this time if all we did was get ourselves killed."

"Well we hadn't done anything…impressive back then. Now we have. You talked Onuris into sparing my life, and Sam raised the High Priest from the dead. You add that to trashing their temple and destroying the statue of Onuris, not to mention probably laying the foundations for the end of their belief in him as a god, and I think we've probably earned ourselves a place in the history books."

O'Neill looked at his teammate by the blue glare of the flashlight. Daniel had his arms wrapped around his chest – never a good sign. He also looked pale, grubby and close to despair. Whenever he went this brittle and self-hating action needed to be taken quickly. As getting him drunk wasn't an option and as O'Neill was frankly too exhausted and in too much pain himself to want to have to compose a comforting speech, he decided sleep was probably the best solution.

"I don't know about you but I'm beat," he said conversationally. "Let's get the hell away from these rings and find somewhere to get some shut-eye. Help me, will you?"

He saw a look of mingled gratitude and anxiety flashed in his direction. Daniel obviously couldn't decide if he was so dangerously ill he didn't mind asking for help, or if he was just trying to give him something to do to make him feel better. Too damned intense. He could literally say he had been in marriages less complicated than this friendship. If he didn't watch every word he said to Daniel there was always a risk of hurting his feelings in some unforeseen way, and as watching every word he said didn't exactly come naturally to him, he probably did hurt Daniel's feelings on a fairly regular basis. The saving grace being that Daniel now knew him well enough to also know he didn't mean it.

Daniel supported him carefully, helping him to hop across the cavern to the opening in the rocks although he was still tending to wave the flashlight beam around the walls instead of aiming it in the direction in which they were heading. "This feels like some kind of emergency exit to me," Daniel peered over his shoulder. "A sort of backstairs entrance. You know we usually only get to explore the area of a planet closest to the Stargate, this time we could be miles – hundreds of miles – maybe even thousands of miles from the Stargate…"

O'Neill didn't say anything. On other occasion he might have suggested they had more important things to think about but right now he was all for Daniel worrying about the intangible and the probably unprovable if it stopped him guilt-tripping.

"…which of course means we're also thousands of miles from Sam and Teal'c."

Well that had to be the shortest holiday from a guilt-trip he'd ever known. Time to join in the conversation. "Emergency exit suggests trouble to me," he put in, trying not to let it show in his voice how much his damned leg was hurting. "Like the Goa'uld had to retreat in a hurry. Maybe they don't worship Onuris on this part of the planet. Maybe we'll find some allies here who'd be happy to help us drive out the Goa'uld." Maybe there's more than one Stargate and we can dial home and get help. Maybe the people here have invented the internal combustion engine and they'll have left us a Porsche with the keys in the ignition. Maybe the moon really is made of green cheese. What the hell, he was willing to say just about anything to make Daniel feel better at the moment. Quite apart from the other considerations, Daniel was much more useful when he was thinking positively.

Another cavern. Dripping, dark, cold, musty. He was getting seriously bored with caves. He supposed he should be grateful these were so dank and featureless; the sniff of any paintings on the walls and Daniel would never get any sleep.

Yet another cavern. And another. This was jarring the hell out of his leg, he could feel the damp getting into every piece of scar tissue he possessed, and Daniel was definitely struggling, but he was damned if he was going to lie down and go to sleep with no idea of their current situation. He needed to see the sky, needed to know if it was day or night here. The only way they could work out how far they'd traveled was if they got a glimpse of the outside world.

"Jack, for all I know we could be going around in circles, down here. Don't you think you ought to rest?"

He felt torn. Daniel was going to fall down with exhaustion if he didn't let him sleep soon but if they were to have any chance of saving Carter and Teal'c they had to know their position relative to that of their teammates'. If they were ten thousand miles or ten miles away they needed to work it out. A cold breeze made him shiver. He jerked his head in that direction. "Daniel."

"What?"

"Shine the flashlight over there."

As Daniel did so, he saw an opening, a ragged fissure in the rocks, not what you could a proper doorway, but they could slip through as long as they breathed in. There was a pool between them and the way out and he flinched in anticipation before edging into it cautiously. "Jesus!"

Daniel gasped something in Abydonian that sounded like a swearword, lurching as the freezing water splashed up to his calves. "Cold. Very, very cold."

They splashed through it awkwardly, the water feeling as heavy as liquid metal against their legs and so icy O'Neill could feel shrieks of protest running up from his toes to discharge straight into the deep throbbing of his wounded leg. Whether by luck or judgment Onuris had managed to get him almost exactly in the same place as Kintar; making it all the easier to remember how it had felt being in hell.

They staggered through the freezing water, hauling themselves out stiffly and – in his case – painfully the other side. Daniel wriggled through the fissure first and then offered him a hand. It was a bit more of a squeeze for him, but he made it with some determined tugging from Daniel. They both staggered down an incline into another cave. It was bare and freezing cold, but beyond the cave mouth there was light; faint and eerie, yet recognizably pinpricks of silver in what was definitely a cloud-bruised night sky. The outside world. Points of reference. Wherever they were it was still dark, that was something. At least they hadn't been transported to the equivalent of Australia. He hobbled to the mouth of the cave and peered up at the constellations. Yes. There were some he recognized from sitting in Harun's hut and also from their climb up the hillside. The stars had changed position, but they were still there, so they were in the same hemisphere but…

Daniel watched Jack anxiously, wondering if he had any idea how ill he looked. His right pants leg had almost melted into his skin around the staff weapon blast and the surface of the wound looked shiny and crusted, like the black skin which formed over cooling lava, the redness glowing through from underneath. He felt in the pockets of his vest. He knew he didn't have much in the way of supplies because he'd searched them thoroughly earlier when he'd been so hungry, but he thought he'd come across some…Yes!

"Jack." Daniel put the two Tylenol in Jack's hand. "You have to get the weight off that leg and you really need to get some sleep."

Jack was murmuring things under his breath, peering up at the stars as he did so. He nodded in satisfaction, throwing the aspirin down his throat without even seeming to notice. "I think we're on the same continent. I'd say we're about the same distance from Teal'c and Carter as say Acapulco is from Colorado."

"What?" Daniel felt the dismay overwhelm him. He'd been trying to tell himself Onuris would have been limited in where he could send them by the existing rings. The Goa'uld might have only conquered one particular area of this planet. "We can't possibly walk that far in two days. Even if you weren't wounded – "

"It could be a lot worse, Daniel. I was afraid we might be in the equivalent of Antarctica."

Daniel shivered. "Well it's cold enough."

"That's because we're high up. Look."

Unwillingly, Daniel went to the mouth of the cave and looked down. There was a rustling sea of darkness beneath them which it took him a moment to realize was the top of trees. They were a long way up, so high up it made him feel breathless to think about it. He tried to snatch some oxygen and Jack's hand closed on his arm. "The air's a little thinner than you're used to, that's all. I think we're in the equivalent of Quito. That could be the local version of the Amazon rain forest down there, in which case it will get a lot warmer once we can get down lower."

Daniel looked back at the rippling canopy, then up to the implacable, unfamiliar stars. He felt chilled through every cell and his mind ached with exhaustion. He couldn't think about possibilities now. He couldn't think about anything except Jack's injured leg. He said stolidly, "You need to get the weight off that leg and let me take a look at it." He began to search through his pockets for the silver blanket that folded up so small it almost defied the laws of possibility, so used to it being to hand that it took him three searches to realize he didn’t have it. The priests must have taken it or else he'd left it behind in the catacombs, and Jack didn't have his vest with him. For once the SGC wasn't going to be able to provide. "I don't have my blanket thingy," he offered.

Jack limped away from the cave entrance and sniffed the air. "Can't smell any bears or mountain lions so I don't think we're trespassing on anyone's den. Of course it's a little difficult smelling anything with you upwind of me."

Daniel looked at him reproachfully. "You're not exactly a can of air freshener yourself."

"Trust me on this, Daniel, you're worse." Jack took his elbow and began to steer him deeper into the cave. "Which is bad luck for me, because without the contents of my vest to hand you're my only heat source at the moment, so I guess I'm going to have to put up with you stinking like a dead elk in high summer if I don't want to die from hypothermia."

"What?" Daniel was flicking the beam from the flashlight disconsolately around the cave but all it was showing him was bare ground and cold rock walls.

Jack put a hand over the front of the flashlight. "That light is going to show up if there's anyone down there to see it and I don't know about you, but I'm not really in the mood for visitors, so point it down." As Daniel hastily lowered the beam, Jack continued quietly, "We're going to have to share body heat, Daniel, or else we're not going to make it through the night."

Daniel remembered asking Sam how weird it had been, having to cozy up with Jack in Antarctica. She'd told him the worst part was trying not to roll on his broken ribs. When pressed she'd admitted it was very weird. 'But not,' she added with the flicker of a smile, 'entirely unpleasant…' Now he realized he should have asked her something practical: like did Jack snore or kick you in his sleep.

"Okay."

"Just 'okay'?"

"The Ancient Spartans did it all the time. Actually the Ancient Spartans did a whole lot of other things to keep warm as well but you probably don't want to hear about that right now."

"However did you guess?"

Right, Jack was tired, pissy, and hurting. It hadn't been a fun day and if they didn't both get some sleep soon their chances of finding a means of getting back to the temple were going to dwindle to zero.  First things first. He needed to get that wound seen to, then they needed to argue about who was going to take the first watch. Daniel sat down on the cave floor. There was a faint sprinkling of dust but it wasn't exactly a feather mattress. "Here okay?"

Jack glanced around the cave and then shrugged. "It all looks equally uncomfortable to me. Here will be dandy."

"Let me see to your leg first."

"Must you?"

Daniel gave him a look which he hoped spoke volumes then pointed at the floor. The priests had clearly rifled through the pockets of his vest because half the contents were missing and the rest had been shoved back in any which way. His fingers were so cold they fumbled clumsily before finding the pad he was looking for. He yanked it out gratefully, ignoring that groan from Jack as the man reluctantly sat down next to him and straightened his leg.

"Let me do it," Jack protested.

"No." Daniel handed Jack the flashlight so he could hold it on his leg, then began easing the burnt cloth away from the wound as carefully as he could.

"Ow!"

"Jack!"

"It hurts."

Daniel wondered how someone who was without a doubt a bona fide American hero could be such a whiner about having his wounds treated. "You're the kind of patient who drives doctors out of medicine."

"Yeah, and you're the kind of doctor who's only qualified to dig up dead people. Jesus, Daniel!"

Daniel decided to ignore him. It was the only way with Jack when he was wounded; otherwise it was impossible not to be distracted by his constant bitching. He concentrated on getting all the bits of burnt cloth out of the wound, mentally humming loudly to himself to block out the sound of Jack's swearing. When he was satisfied the wound was as clean as he could get it, he fumbled in his vest pocket for the antibiotic cream, relieved when his fingers closed on it. He squeezed a generous measure over the burn, pointedly ignored Jack's hiss of "Christ, that's cold!" then strapped a pad around the wound. Although he said it himself, he thought that was a pretty good bit of doctoring.

The way Jack examined his handiwork and offered a grudging 'Humph', suggested to Daniel that the man could find nothing to complain about. "You're welcome," he told him as he switched off the flashlight. The darkness was enveloping for a moment and then the starlight began to grow brighter as his eyes adjusted, a faint bluish glow bathing them both.

Jack beckoned to him wearily as he unzipped his jacket. "Okay, cuddle up."

"Do I look like that kind of boy?"

Jack's glare was steely. "We can do this with you conscious or unconscious: your choice."

Daniel reluctantly unzipped his own jacket, murmuring, "And yet he's single…"

Despite the kidding around, Daniel wasn't too sure how he felt about snuggling up to Jack for warmth. They'd been closer than this on Netu and it had comforted him then but there had been other people nearby on that occasion. He didn't want to overstep any boundaries and he was very aware of Jack's wounded leg, not to mention his decidedly ragged temper. If he touched that wound, Jack was going to hiss with pain and exasperation right in his ear, then probably tell him he'd rather freeze to death by himself, thank you. Daniel lay down next to Jack awkwardly, knowing he was probably coming across like an unwilling bride on the wedding night but not wanting to be the one who made the first move.

"Daniel, we have to share body heat. That means we have to be touching."

"I'm worried about your leg," he protested.

His answer was Jack impatiently pulling him against his body. He immediately felt several degrees warmer and tentatively put his arms around the man's back, the same way Jack had done – his arms around the older man's torso and under his jacket. He could feel their body heat mingling, creating a cocoon of warmth enveloping their chests, but he was afraid he might be hurting that wounded leg. "Is this okay?"

"Well it's not an emergency blanket but it'll do."

"Thanks a bunch."

"I know it would be warmer if we went deeper into those damned caves but I can't stick the thought of spending another night underground." Jack gave him an apologetic shrug, face grainy and ghost-lit by starlight. "I just…needed to see some stars."

"You could always hit your head on a low doorway. That usually does it for me."

"Shut up and go to sleep," Jack told him.

"No, let me take the first watch."

"There's not going to be any first watch. We're both going to sleep."

Daniel gaped at him. That was unheard of. "But, Jack…"

"Daniel, we're both dead on our feet here. If we don't get some rest we're never going to be able to help Carter and Teal'c. Now, will you please shut up and go to sleep?"

The silence stretched as Daniel tried to get comfy. He didn't want to disturb Jack but the guy was full of awkward edges tonight and between the rock floor and trying not to roll on Jack's wounded leg, and trying to find a way to stay close without being jabbed painfully by body parts…

"Will you quit it with that wriggling?" Jack muttered in annoyance.

Daniel tried again to get comfortable but it was no good there was something very hard sticking into his stomach and it hurt. He scratched his jaw. "Jack, don't take this the wrong way, but is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

Jack's sigh of exasperation warmed his right ear nicely. He could tell Jack wasn't even bothering to open his eyes, and he sounded like most of him was already asleep. He muttered drowsily, "Damnit, Daniel, like I told Carter in Antarctica, it's my sidearm…"

"Uh – Jack? You don't have a sidearm." Daniel grimaced apologetically. "Don't you remember? The lion guards took all our – "

Jack rolled away from him in an instant and Daniel saw him patting himself down. Daniel cleared his throat. "I don't mind. It's just a bit disconcer – "

"Will you switch the damned flashlight on?"

Blinking in surprise, Daniel fumbled for it and then did so. As his eyes watered from the sudden brightness he saw Jack staring at something in disbelief. It took Daniel a moment to recognize what Jack was holding. "It was your sidearm."

Jack was already checking the weapon, as wide-awake now as he had been drowsy only seconds before. He ejected the clip, examined it, then jammed it back in before turning to Daniel with disbelief on his face. "How the hell – ?"

Daniel's eyes widened in realization. "Harun. It had to be Harun. He must have slipped it to you. You're so used to having a gun you wouldn't have noticed the weight of it."

"Have you got yours?"

His brain was so tired it took Daniel a moment to realize what Jack was asking. As he made to pat himself down, Jack impatiently pushed his hands out of the way and did it for him, reaching into his pockets in turn. "If he gave me a weapon he ought to have given you – Yes."

Daniel shone the flashlight on the small knife in Jack's hand. "That's not mine."

"One of your 'worshippers' must have put it in your pocket while they were helping you down the mountain."

He took the knife from Jack and turned it over in his fingers. "If they gave these to us, they might have given something to Sam and Teal'c."

Immediately Jack's face was closed over and hostile again. "They're only interested in fulfilling their precious prophecy, remember, Daniel? Maybe it's written that you and me survive but Carter and Teal'c don't. The only thing we know they gave Carter is a fever. Now put the knife away and let's get some shuteye."

Daniel opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. Jack was right. They needed their sleep. If they were too exhausted to think they were never going to be able to find a way back to the temple. He lay down gingerly next to Jack, heart sinking as he realized they were going to have to go through the awkward ritual of getting close again.

"Oh for crying out loud." Jack pulled him back into his arms and pushed Daniel's head against his chest. Warmth spread out from the older man in an instant and Daniel quickly put his arms around him in return. For the first time since they'd entered the temple and seen Onuris waiting for them he felt the sick despair lift a little. Whatever Jack might think, if Harun was willing to help them, perhaps he would also be willing to help Teal'c and Sam. On the other hand…

"Will you stop with the damned wriggling?" Jack protested. "You should bear in mind how long it's been since Kinthia."

Daniel stifled a snigger in the man's chest. "Didn't realize you were that desperate, Jack."

"Don't laugh, it tickles. And you needn't be so sure I'm kidding. If it turns out you and me are the only living things in this hemisphere you might start looking a lot better." Jack shifted their weight a little, trying to settle them into the most comfortable position before adding conversationally, "Of course, the way you smell right now I'd say you were pretty safe."

Daniel opened his mouth to tell Jack he wasn't exactly a dozen long-stemmed roses himself at the moment then realized he was too sleepy to bother. He could hear Jack's heartbeat, strong and regular, a comforting rhythm by his right ear, the proof at least one of his teammates was still alive. They were both alive, they had found out a way out of the caves, they each had a weapon, and Sam and Teal'c might not be entirely amongst enemies back there. That was a much better situation than he'd expected them to be in an hour before. As he drifted off to sleep he felt something stirring inside him, an emotion he almost didn't recognize it was so long since he'd felt it. As the inevitable dreams pulled him into their embrace he belatedly realized what he was feeling. It was hope.

***

Samantha could smell cookies, fresh from the oven, her own recipe and Dad's favorite. She always worried when he was late. The work he did was dangerous and she'd grown up knowing there might be a day when he didn't come home; that what might be waiting for her on the doorstep in his place would be two men in Air Force uniform she'd never seen before. Their eyes full of apology and the triumph of death over hope reflected in every one of their shining silver buttons. Baking cookies helped pass the time. It was a difficult enough task to keep her mind off the possibilities she didn't want to think about, but not so tricky she couldn’t afford to woolgather a little. Her mother had taught her that one: the hundred ways you could profitably fill in those dark times when missions didn't go as scheduled, when the one you loved was overdue and the hours began to crawl as slowly as something decaying. Death was so absolute you should never let it into your heart if you could keep it out. Never believe in it until you had to. She'd thought him lost so many times, her mother had said once, but he'd always come back. You had to keep hoping. Always.

Her mother spoke with the knowledge of someone who had lost hope and been seared by it in the past. Perhaps a coward endured a hundred deaths before dying, but a serviceman's wife endured at least that many painful rehearsals of mourning before the fateful knock on the door finally came. Or never came. He might return in triumph, wearing his wounds like decorations, but she was left with the might-have-beens. However little he told her, she always knew how close he'd come. That was what she was left with the next time he went away, the knowledge he'd been so lucky in the past his ability to escape the death he kept courting surely couldn't hold out forever.

Just one of the reasons why Samantha had resolved at an early age never to marry a serviceman. Others could wait for her to come home from missions, but she was never again going to be the one waiting for that ring on the doorbell which carried the Last Post in its echoes.

It was the only thing her parents ever argued about: How could he love his work so much when it might be the thing that robbed his children of a father, his wife of a husband? Samantha hated hearing her mom get those tears in her voice. Her dad's response was always said too low for her to hear, but the sound of it would be soothing, and anyway she could guess the words. They were the ones she'd probably be giving to her husband and children in the future, when she was an astronaut blasting off to walk the red dust of Mars or circle the rings of Saturn. Her loved ones would be left behind, frail and taut with needless anxiety, so small and fragile her heart would be aching at the point of take-off even as the adrenalin also began to pump. She had never had one minute's doubt she was going to grow up to be an astronaut. It was all she'd ever wanted. As a child sitting cross-legged on the floor she'd watched Neil Armstrong step onto the grey surface of the moon on that blurry black and white TV screen and felt her heart contract with an excitement that had never really faded. That was what she was going to do. That was what she had to do…

Mom and Dad would be back any minute and they'd have the smell of baking to welcome them home. It was the cinnamon which made these cookies so special, and that little pinch of nutmeg. The problem was always keeping Mark away from them; he'd eat them when they were too hot and burn his mouth, and if he had friends over they'd move in on her cooking like locusts. As she heard the front door opening she realized she'd timed it perfectly. When she heard her father's voice the anxiety she'd been trying so hard to ignore could finally slacken its grip on her heart. He was home. Everything was fine.

"Major Carter?"

What a beautiful voice that was, quiet but resonant. She liked the way it said her name so gently and yet with such respect. It made her feel safer and gave her strength at the same time. If that voice was nearby then they could solve any problem; she just needed to remember the name of its owner.

"Major Carter? Are you awake?"

"Teal'c!" Carter opened her eyes. They felt gritty and hot. Her whole body felt hot. It was like being back on Netu, her skin was burning, her spine aching with the pain of that internal heat. Hands on her shoulders helped her to sit up, a wooden cup was held to her cracked lips. Water. God, she was so thirsty. It hurt to swallow but she still drank eagerly then wiped her mouth. "Thanks."

For the first time she took in their surroundings and winced. Dark, cold, bare. A cell underground. Not good. Some chill blue light filtering in from somewhere to make a lattice pattern across her right boot, so there must be a window set up very high and too small to crawl through. This was definitely not good. The only consolation was the sight of Teal'c sitting beside her. She was very glad to know he was with her, his strength and calm something she could take comfort from even as she reminded herself that he was as much a prisoner as she was. Logically she should have been wishing he was anywhere but here with her – outside their prison working to rescue them all, for instance, but she couldn't help her sense of relief at seeing him, knowing he was close by. Perhaps Teal'c had saved them all on Netu by being on the tel'tak instead of at their side but that damned Pit would still have seemed a much less frightening place if he'd been with them. She winced as she swallowed, her tonsils feeling like golf balls, managing hoarsely: "Colonel O'Neill? Daniel?"

"Do you not remember?"

She looked up at Teal'c's blue-lit face and closed her eyes, memory returning despite the fire coursing down her spine. The Goa'uld in the tall headdress seizing Daniel by the hair, dragging him across the temple. The staff weapon blast. The Colonel crying out in pain. The rings ascending and taking them away. She put a hand up to her throbbing head. "Yes. I think so. Onuris used the transporter rings to send them somewhere else on the planet."

"That is correct."

"What's our situation?"

Teal'c's hand on her forehead felt cool and soothing but the anxiety in his eyes was not reassuring. She managed a faint smile. "That good, eh?"

"We are imprisoned in a dungeon within the temple of Onuris and you have a fever."

"But apart from that we have them just where we want them?" she prompted. The heat had gone now, which was good, but she was starting to feel cold. Very cold.

His smile felt like the only warmth in the room. "Just so, Major Carter." He took his hand from her forehead and gently urged her to lie back down. "You must rest. Your fever will break soon."

He said it with such confidence that it was only as she closed her gritty eyes again Carter realized he was lying. His jacket was back over her shoulders and she was glad of it. The heat was just a memory now and her teeth were chattering, the shivers running through her even though she tried so hard to relax and stop them. "Teal'c?" She hadn't meant to sound frightened but she was so cold she thought she was going to die from it. "Cold – so c-cold."

Immediately he was lying down beside her, his arms around her, his body pressed against hers, a comforting warmth against her back. As the shivering convulsed her, he stroked her hair as gently as her father had when she was sick as a child. She remembered again that Teal'c was also a father; that he must also have comforted Ry'ac in his time. "G-glad you're here, Teal'c," she said again.

"There is no danger of me leaving you, Major Carter," he said gently.

As she drifted into unconsciousness, she remembered lying beside the Colonel in Antarctica, trying to warm him with her body so that his last moments would be less bleak, lying to him so he could go into his death-sleep thinking he was with his wife. She wanted to tell Teal'c that it was all right, she understood how hard it was to have to sit there and watch a teammate die, but the words wouldn't come, only the shivering came, wave after wave dragging her back into the chill darkness of fevered dreams.

***

Steam was rising from the jungle to warm the soles of his feet; trees taking shape again as they emerged from a milk-white mist which was already dissolving gently in the sunlight. The background music from birds and monkeys had grown from an occasional solo to a full symphony. Up in the mouth of the cave it was warm enough to dry out his socks, but not so hot it hurt his injured leg, but down there beneath the canopy the day was heating up fast.

O'Neill had peeled back the sterile pad and checked his leg for signs of infection. Staff weapon blasts usually cauterized the wound so fast there wasn't much chance for dirt to get under the skin. He couldn't see any streaking; none of his veins seemed reddened or raised. His leg hurt all right, but it wasn't the nerve-thrumming throb of infection, it was just the way a leg felt when a piece of skin had been blasted away and a burn left in its place. It was inconvenient and painful but it didn't appear to be life threatening. As he rebandaged it, he wished the same could be said of the fever Carter had contracted.

According to his watch it was nearly mid-day where Carter and Teal'c were, more like nine a.m. for him and Daniel. After the day, and then the night Daniel had been through, he'd decided to let him rest, so the part of him that worried about that particular member of his team was relaxing at the moment. After a rough night, Daniel was sleeping more peacefully now, and when O'Neill had carefully disentangled himself from the younger man's protective grip, Daniel had no longer been trembling, the last of the shokmar reaction clearly out of his system. Judging by the howling and shrieking coming from that rain forest spread out beneath them there was plenty to eat down there and a few miles down this mountain the day was looking balmy. He was therefore reasonably confident of being able to supply Daniel with food, warmth, and shelter as and when it was needed.

He'd started the day by limping outside to survey the rainforest beneath them. His first thought was that it was a long time since he'd had to remember his jungle survival lore, although it was a pleasant surprise to find so much of it starting to come back to him. He could see a river to follow, he could see clearings, clearings suggested fallen trees which might have fruit or nuts they could eat. Had time not been a factor he would have been looking around for materials to make a bow and arrow and working out how much monkey meat they needed to mix with fruit and nuts to have a balanced diet. But as they had two days to pull off a miracle, he decided to let the normal worries about nutrition, shelter, fire and so on recede into the background while he thought about other things.

Unfortunately, the half of Jack O'Neill that worried about Carter and Teal'c was in a blind panic right now, screaming at him to do something, anything, to get Daniel up right now and get them both moving …Except that wasn't enough this time. He'd been using compass, watch, notebook, and ballpoint pen since there had been light enough to see them by. He'd sketched the constellations he'd remembered from the night before and made a few calculations. He'd noticed where the sun came up and compared it with where it had gone down the night before. He'd done the math four times already and it had come out the same every time. They were three time zones west of the Temple of Onuris. Or, in other words, if they were in Los Angeles, Carter and Teal'c were in New York.

People probably had walked from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast; their forefathers had rolled across the land in their covered wagons over those sort of distances in their time; but he was damned sure no one had ever made the journey on foot in two days even without one of those travelers being wounded.

So although the impulse was to start stumbling east just as fast as they could, it would be futile unless they could find another and much faster means of getting where they needed to go. He still wished they'd been given access to that tablet but assuming most of what it said was true, Daniel had got plenty of credit for being…Actually, come to think of it, what the hell had the Chosen One actually done for these people? Been young and pretty and had nice manners seemed to be about the total of it. And been miraculously resurrected from his shokmar trance by his 'angels'. The avatars seemed to have done all the real work. Teal'c had destroyed the temple in a properly Biblical fashion. Carter had demonstrated her compassion by saving the High Priest from the fate he so richly deserved. And he…And he was supposed to be the brains of the outfit. There was a terrible irony there but he didn't feel too much like laughing right now…

"You okay, Jack?"

That quiet question brought him back to the present in an instant. He turned his head to see Daniel watching him curiously. He hadn't heard him wake up. He wondered how long Daniel had been lying there, assessing his mood.

O'Neill summoned up a smile. "Fine. You?"

"Fine."

"Did you sleep okay?"

"Fine. You?"

"Fine."

Well, weren't they both lying well today? Although to be fair he was never too sure if Daniel remembered the nightmares when he opened his eyes. After three years of missions together they had more than a nodding acquaintance with each other's bad dreams. In Daniel's case they usually looped between Sha're as a Goa'uld and his parents dying in front of him; but there were others, not much harder to decipher, about being left on the wrong shore, trapped in dark rooms, going home to find the house empty; various dreams of abandonment, of being unwanted and unloved. More recently there had come dreams of being locked in a padded cell and left to go insane. Dreams of the sarcophagus. Dreams of Hathor. Dreams of Apophis. Dreams of Amaunet frying his brain with the ribbon device. Dreams of him failing his dead wife, failing to find Kheb, failing to find her child. Oh yes, by now Daniel's many nightmares were practically old friends.

O'Neill had stumbled back towards consciousness thinking of Sara. In the second of confusion before he opened his eyes, he'd been in the twilight between dream-state and waking, the world that sometimes drip-fed him a memory of paradise lost: when he'd been a husband and a father, instead of divorced and childless. For a second the ghost of her warmth had lingered, he'd felt her hair against his face, could smell the faint scent of her shampoo…And then he'd opened his eyes to the chilly silver dawn of an alien world, and an unwashed and unshaven Daniel Jackson snoring gently on his chest. That had been a little disconcerting he had to admit.

"Jack?"

"What?"

Daniel was looking at him curiously. "You sure you're okay?"

"Just peachy, Daniel. In our situation, who wouldn't be?"

Well that was an expression he'd had a lot of practice in recognizing: Daniel deciding he needed to be handled with kid gloves. He could practically see Daniel sending himself a little memo about tiptoeing around Jack for the next few hours or else he'd get his head bitten off. Well if Daniel hadn't learned by now that nothing made him crabby faster than Daniel deciding he was feeling crabby when he wasn't…

"Here."

O'Neill looked down at the two Tylenol Daniel put into his hand en route for the cave entrance. Daniel stumbled blearily outside before he had a chance to thank him. He opened his mouth to call after him and then closed it again, swallowing the aspirin down with a shrug.

When he closed his eyes he saw Carter swaying on her feet with fever and exhaustion, skin so white she looked like there was no blood left in her veins, eyes red-rimmed and watering, heard her voice reduced to a husky whisper by the slivers of glass in her throat. And then he'd see her with that scrape down the side of her chilled face, nose and eyes red with the cold, no sleep in God knows how many hours as she struggled with that DHD, saying despairingly, "I should have got you out of here by now!"

He remembered the agony of that spike in his shoulder, the infection crawling through him; waiting for death, fearing it and welcoming it because nothing could be worse than the way he was feeling right now. The one bright spot in all his misery the comforting presence of Teal'c beside him. The Jaffa saying quietly, "I am here, O'Neill."

And that was where he should be right now. With his team. Helping them. Protecting them. The way they'd always helped and protected him.

Don't go there. He knew where that thought would take him. Daniel had known it too, that was why he'd taken one look at his face and got the hell out of his way. And was now staying the hell out of his way even though, unless that was the longest piss in history, he had no reason not to come back to the cave. That thought led to: This is all Daniel's fault. All Daniel's fault they were in this damned mess, that Carter was dying, Teal'c under sentence of death, and the other half of their team had been transported too far away to get back there and save them.

Except it wasn't Daniel's fault. If it was anyone's fault, it was his. He was the team leader. It was his job to keep an eye on any situation they happened to be in. He was the one who hadn't noticed the temple and hadn't given even one second's consideration to Daniel's request that he go and look at it. True, Daniel shouldn't disobey orders, but O'Neill knew him well enough by now to know that Daniel didn't really perceive the situation the same way a soldier would. He didn't think of it as obeying or disobeying orders. He thought of it more as he'd given Jack a chance to be reasonable and as the man was clearly in a pissy mood it was probably better to leave him by himself for a while until he got over it while Daniel went and did his job. He should have kept an eye on Daniel and he knew it. He should have given his request the consideration it deserved and then either accompanied him to the temple or given him a reason why he didn't want him to go and look at it right now. And yes, you would have thought by now Daniel would have learned not to wander off by himself, but you also would have thought he'd have learned to give Daniel proper explanations.

He'd thought he'd learned that lesson back on P3R-233 after all; all those hours of fruitless searching for a teammate who'd been whisked off to an alternative universe, imagining him dying of radiation poisoning or mortally wounded by a Goa'uld booby-trap while O'Neill thought over and over 'I should have told him why …'

It was less than twenty-four hours since he would have given almost anything to know Daniel was alive and unhurt. Well, Daniel was alive and unhurt. Maybe he should be grateful for that. He was grateful for it, damnit. He'd thought the guy was going to be tortured to death right in front of him and instead the only thing wrong with Daniel right now was the guilt eating into him like sulfuric acid. And the way he smelled, of course. They definitely had to do something about getting that boy cleaned up.

O'Neill clambered to his feet painfully, using the cave wall to steady himself. "Daniel?" No answer. Christ, Daniel, don't tell me you've wandered off again! Where the hell are you? "Daniel!"

"Jack?"

If his teammate had been even six feet away from the mouth of the cave he'd be surprised because Daniel was there in a moment, looking at him with concern. Get a grip, O'Neill. The extent of his panic frightened him. His nerves were clearly shot to hell.

"Are you okay?" Daniel came towards him like he'd approach a stray dog that had got itself hung up on wire fencing. Wanting to help but afraid of getting bitten.

"I'm fine." That came out harsher than he'd intended and Daniel winced. O'Neill took a deep breath and rested a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I'm fine," he said it gently this time. "I'm just worried about Teal'c and Carter, and my leg hurts." I'm not mad at you, Daniel, I swear.

He almost said it aloud but it was too much the kind of thing you said to a child. Too much what he would have said to Charlie. Daniel was biting his lip, blue eyes full of concern. And guilt. Oh boy, lots and lots of guilt. Dreaming about your dead wife probably did that for you on a good day. On what was a bad day by anyone's standards, it probably took you right to the brink of self-loathing.

O'Neill decided to go with brisk and practical. Bring Daniel up to speed with his findings so far and try to get him focused on coming up with a solution. He wanted that brilliant mind working on ways to get them back to the temple not on ways to mentally torture Daniel Jackson.

"…so that's our current situation. Any ideas?"

Daniel frowned in concentration. "Well as there are transport rings here there might be some other signs of Goa'uld civilization in this area. Like you said last night, this feels like some kind of emergency exit, but down there – " he gestured towards the jungle, "we might find other Goa'uld technology. Transport rings we can use." He gave O'Neill an apologetic shrug, "Off the top of my head I don't know what else we can do except look for other signs of human or Goa'uld life."

"Okay, that sounds like a plan to me. Let's head out."

***

Carter couldn't decide if she was awake or asleep. Hot or cold. Sinking or floating. This was the dreamscape of the fever victim. This was the world Daniel had visited when Amaunet was murdering him. This was where Jolinar's memories came from.

She still remembered how it felt to a prisoner inside her own body; trapped with what she'd believed to be a Goa'uld sharing her consciousness, reading her thoughts, controlling her actions. She'd never been so frightened of anything as she had been of Jolinar. Like hiding under the bed to evade the bogeyman and finding he had climbed under there with you. Yet nothing could have prepared her for the sensation of being blended with another's psyche, the unity of duality, a sense of such completeness that even in the midst of her fear of the Ashrak, and her despair at being treated like an enemy by the people she cared for most, there had been the wonder of that relationship. When Jolinar had died inside her, the grief had been indescribable. She had never felt lonelier than in the days afterwards, when she felt around cautiously for that other mind and realized it was truly gone.

She'd known that no one would ever know how it felt to have been blended and then lose the symbiote inside you. Colonel O'Neill and Daniel were both too hostile to the Goa'uld and too repulsed by the concept of intermingling with one to be truly sympathetic to her grief. Oh, they'd tried, certainly. She'd watched them both struggle with the concept and fail. The Colonel had tried to comprehend how losing the symbiote within her could feel like a bereavement rather than a triumph but ended up treating her reaction to the death of Jolinar as essentially irrational, as though she'd been raped and was blaming herself for it. She knew that was probably how both the Colonel and Daniel saw it – a violation of her body and psyche which had left her understandably traumatized. They had been full of sympathy because Jolinar had invaded her mind against her will, but although they had tried so hard to comprehend it, neither of them had really been able to understand why she felt such a terrible sense of loss.

It was Teal'c who'd found her sobbing inconsolably in the 'gateroom and who had told her some of the dead Tok'ra's kalesh might still exist within her. That she might be able to access it with meditation. He had tried to teach her kelno'reem, just as he had endeavored to teach it to Daniel, but although she'd struggled to attain the necessary state of tranquility, she'd never managed to reach the memories of Jolinar inside her by that route. It had taken near-death in the naqadah mines for the flashbacks to be ignited. The sight of Martouf had let loose another flood of memories and she'd realized Jolinar wasn't completely gone after all; nor completely dead because as long as Samantha Carter was alive, so was a part of Jolinar of Melkshur.

Martouf .

She knew how his lips tasted yet had never kissed him. Knew intimately and precisely how his skin felt beneath her fingertips yet had barely touched him. Knew how his passion felt, the inferno inside him no outside observer could ever have guessed existed yet she had witnessed a thousand times in their love-making. Yet they'd never made love.  Had barely exchanged more than formalities.

How could she ever have a future with anyone else when there were memories embedded within her of being in love with this man? And love as Samantha Carter had never known it; four souls all intertwined; a century of passion; an intensity of feeling which even second-hand could still occasionally overwhelm her. He had unlocked more than just the floodgates to memory on that tel'tak; far too many feelings had managed to seep through as well.

She didn't know if Samantha Carter loved Martouf or not, but she did know that ever since Jolinar's memories had been awoken within her, it would be very hard for her to love anyone else. She could throw herself into a love affair, certainly, take refuge in infatuation like someone turning up the volume on a symphony to blot out that subtler and more insistent violin solo playing in her head, but she suspected that however hard she fostered them, her feelings for other men were going to burn out far more quickly than her feelings for Martouf. He was part of her legacy from Jolinar; a complicated inheritance, like a series of locked boxes left inside her which she had as yet only half-explored.

Pain thrummed through her body, white fire down her spine as the infected fluid throbbed at her spitefully. The straw could have been gravel for all the comfort it was offering her. Don't move, Sam. Keep absolutely still. As long as she didn't swallow it wouldn't hurt her throat. If she didn't breathe too deeply she wouldn't get that knife stab in her back. If she didn't flex even her little toe she wouldn't get that agonizing pain in every joint. There. All it took was absolute stillness from a body so burning with fever it kept screaming at her to twist and turn to alleviate the misery, and consciousness was almost bearable. Almost.

Think about something else.  She needed to think about anything other than how sick she felt. When she painfully turned her head she saw Teal'c sitting cross-legged beside her in a state of kelno'reem, endeavoring to marshal his energies again, no doubt trying to think of a way to get them out of here. The sunlight was gilding his profile, making him appear as though he'd been cast in bronze, the soft gleam of the golden tattoo upon his forehead so familiar and so very much a part of him it was difficult to remember it was the brand of the serpent god she was gazing at. Molten gold seared into his skin to tell the world he served a now – hopefully – dead Goa'uld. On Teal'c it seemed more like a badge of nobility than slavery. But then he was a man who could dignify everything he touched, even the emblem of Apophis. If he didn't succeed in finding an escape for them he'd go to his execution blaming himself for her death despite the fact there was no reason why he should feel responsible for keeping her safe. And as for Daniel…

Carter winced at the thought of how guilty Daniel was probably feeling. And he had a wounded and anxious-about-his-teammates Colonel O'Neill to take care of. Poor Daniel. That wasn't going to be fun. If – when, think when, Sam – they got out of this she would have to make sure he got a vacation. And not the one the Colonel kept trying to make him take – the one where Daniel would get bored out of his skull while the Colonel fished that lake he was always talking about in Minnesota. The fact that someone might not want to spend their vacation staring into a lake trying to catch fish who probably really didn't want to be caught, didn't seem to have occurred to the Colonel. He always mentioned it as a vacation spot for Daniel like it was the best treat he could think of. She'd once suggested that perhaps Daniel might like a holiday somewhere more like Athens, or Pompeii, or even the Land of Light so he could learn more about the Minoan culture. Perhaps the Colonel might want to go with Daniel to somewhere like that and keep him company? Colonel O'Neill had looked at her as though she was insane. "This would be my leave as well as Daniel's we're talking about, Major. Why on earth would I want to spend my leave wandering around a bunch of old ruins? Anyway, the last thing Daniel needs is to be doing stuff like that in his free time. What he needs is fresh air, the great outdoors, clear blue water, and bass that grow that big…"

She'd tried not to mind that Colonel O'Neill had never offered to take her fishing. She understood how difficult it was for a superior officer to socialize with a subordinate. Even though he went out of his way never to pull rank on anyone who didn't deserve it, the Colonel was still, when all was said and done, her superior officer. And the fact they were of different genders probably didn't help matters either. But she'd thought that after all they'd been through she was also his friend. She didn't want to go fishing on that damned lake any more than Daniel did, but all the same it would have been nice, just once, to be asked. Sometimes it felt like she was always going to be 'the girl' in this outfit.

No, it wasn't just that any more. Once upon a time she'd worried about that, but she really didn't feel her gender was a problem any longer. No, what she would have liked reassurance on now was not just that the Colonel saw her as his friend as well as his teammate, but that he still saw her as completely human despite the memories of Jolinar inside her.

In some ways Jolinar had separated her from her teammates almost as effectively as Selmac had separated her father from people like General Hammond. There was such an irony there. Of everyone she had ever known the one man she would have expected to find her relationship with a dead Tok'ra impossible to comprehend was the only one who did. While, Daniel, the person she had hoped might be able to share some of the wonder she'd felt, always flinched from it.

He had been there at once on the tel'tak when she needed him. A better brother to her than Mark had ever been or ever could be in his readiness to listen while she talked about her experience of having those memories flood her mind. She had been so glad of his sympathy and understanding then as she had been so often in the past. When she talked of the sick feeling she got when she thought of Bynarr he'd known at once what she meant. Not very surprising really. She presumed it wasn't very different from the sick feeling he got when he thought about Hathor. They'd exchanged a glance and not needed to exchange any more words as well. It was the Colonel who had made her spell it out in Martouf's hearing. There were definitely days when 'tact' wasn't exactly the Colonel's middle name. She smiled then winced because smiling made her dry lips crack and bleed. Colonel O'Neill was someone else whose inconsistencies she'd learned to like.

Then the smile died as she thought of the look on their faces after she'd killed Seth. She'd never yet been able to control either the ribbon device or the healing device at will; both seemed to flare into life of their own accord, but nevertheless she had killed Seth, her hand and the will within her acting to send that second blast from the hand device to pile-drive the exiled Goa'uld through the concrete floor. The incredible power of it had shocked her. She had done that? She'd been left unnerved and shaken by what she was capable of, feelings not helped when she'd turned to find Daniel and the Colonel staring at her as though she was a stranger. Daniel's 'You killed him?' had certainly held no congratulation in it, and that 'Hail, Dorothy' from the Colonel had seemed to mask a whole lot of things he was trying so hard not to say, all of them to do with her damned near being a Goa'uld.

That was how he'd seen her when Machello's Goa'uld-killing inventions had been inside him, after all. Perhaps even more painful to remember, so had Janet. She'd tried to make a joke about it to Daniel afterwards and he'd been quick to understand the hurt behind her words, attempting to reassure her immediately. He'd described how he'd seen a Goa'uld going into the Colonel over that chess game they'd been playing, slither up his arm and dive in through the back of his neck, the last flick of its tail something he just had to grab even though he'd been trying so hard to pretend he was 'normal'. She'd smiled at him and pretended to feel better but the truth was it had made her feel so much worse. She knew where Daniel's hallucination came from. He'd had to stand there and watch Hathor put a Goa'uld in the Colonel. He'd made himself watch it, trying to prove to the Goa'uld who'd raped him that this wasn't hurting him, that damaging his friends wouldn't make him be her Beloved again so she might as well not bother. Carter had looked away, unable to bear the thought of watching it done. So she hadn't seen the moment when it went into Colonel O'Neill, she'd just been aware of Daniel giving that shudder of horror beside her while trying to keep his face a careful blank.

She knew Daniel had been haunted by that moment, going through the different ways he could have reacted, things he could have done, for weeks before Machello's killing device had burrowed its way under his skin, so it was hardly surprising that was what he'd seen when the hallucinations were disordering his mind. But there was a big difference between seeing a Goa'uld go into someone you cared about and someone you cared about being a Goa'uld. It was clearly a fear of Daniel's, so deeply buried it only came out when he was in the grip of psychosis, that his best friend might once again be turned into a monster while Daniel failed to save him. Equally clearly, everyone in the SGC had vivid memories of when she had appeared to be a Goa'uld, someone with terrifying strength and power, already lost to them, already the enemy. That was what Janet and the Colonel had seen when they were infected, not their friend being turned into a Goa'uld but already a Goa'uld. She wondered if in some part of themselves they would never admit to, Daniel and the Colonel were a little afraid of the woman who had once been blended with Jolinar of Melkshur, and who could kill a System Lord with literally one hand.

***

He let Daniel offer him support down the mountain, relieved to see the guy appeared a lot less frail in the sunlight. The shadows under his eyes didn't look so bad today. He wondered if Daniel really was that much fitter for what had been a fairly uncomfortable night's rest, or if it was just knowing he wasn't imminently going to be tortured to death by Onuris that was making him appear more robust to O'Neill. Either way, he looked better. Which sure as hell made O'Neill feel a lot better. He leaned on Daniel as he limped down the path and Daniel took his weight easily, so in between dreaming of Sha're, murmuring things in Abydonian, wriggling, fidgeting, dribbling into his neck, and kicking him, Daniel had obviously managed to fit in some actual sleeping as well.

"Is there any kind of Air Force procedure for what to do in the jungle?" Daniel enquired.

O'Neill looked at him in surprise. "Haven't you been on archaeological sites in the bush?"

"Not really, no. My grandfather told me about Belize but I spent most of my time in Egypt. I was in Turkey for a while, Greece, too. Let me think…No. No rain forests."

"Well finding a source of fresh water and then following it is usually a good idea." It didn't seem like much of a morale-booster to tell Daniel that old military adage about there being a rule of thumb about being able to either move through unfamiliar terrain or live off it but never both, so he omitted to mention that part.

"That sounds reasonable," Daniel nodded. He twisted his head around to look back up the way they'd come, squinting against the climbing sun. "It's going to get hot in a few hours."

"We'll be under the trees by then, but first – " O'Neill pointed down to the west. "Do you see what I see?"

The pool looked like something you'd pick for a holiday postcard. Water so clear he could see where the blue depths turned green from the trailing weed growing near the bottom. It was surrounded by flat stones, one much larger then the others positively inviting would-be swimmers to dive from its projecting tip. The ferny undergrowth came close enough to give a sense of privacy without overlapping the edges so closely it could hide a hungry predator.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Fresh drinking water?"

"Better." O'Neill tightened his grip on Daniel's elbow and began to urge him towards the limpid depths. "Somewhere you can wash."

O'Neill turned Daniel's clothes over to dry on the other side. His teammate had given them a perfunctory scrub in the pool before laying them out on the nearest flat rock, hoping the climbing sun would dry them before the presumably daily downpour arrived. They were already very nearly wearable again. O'Neill made a mental note to remind Daniel to check for scorpions, poisonous snakes, spiders, or frogs before he pulled his boxer shorts back on: there were some wounds this CO definitely drew the line at sucking.

He was still getting over that short but quite spirited argument he and Daniel had held about what one did and didn't do with water in the tropics. On approaching the pool he had duly checked for the usual signs that suggested the water was drinkable – there was plenty of green vegetation around it, there were animal tracks leading to it and leading away from it, always a good sign, and there were no animal bones. He'd then borrowed Daniel's broken glasses to channel the sun's rays to make a fire over which to boil the water. While he'd been blowing gently on a very satisfying flame, Daniel had stuck his head in the water and gulped down about a pint of the stuff before O'Neill had seen what he was doing. O'Neill had then told him why you never ever drank water from pools, damnit Daniel! Daniel had retorted that it wasn't pool water, it was river water, and anyway it tasted fine to him. And besides, in a rain forest they'd be bound to sweat like pigs and they'd dehydrate if they had to fiddle around boiling everything they drank. So there.

O'Neill had counted to ten before using the still waters of the pool as a mirror with which to shave while the water began to heat up. Despite Daniel telling him pointedly he was no bouquet garni himself, O'Neill had declined a wash in the turquoise pool. He felt his leg had endured enough excitement what with being blasted by a staff weapon, splashed by freezing cavern water, bruised by the rock floor of the cave they'd slept in, and now warmed by the sun; getting it wet again really didn't hold much appeal.

They had then had the argument about Daniel bathing in the pool. That one had also been brief.

"You're the one who said I stink, Jack."

"You do stink, Daniel. Which is why I think it would be a good idea for you to wash. Washing is not the same as immersing yourself in untested water."

Already standing naked on the edge of the pool, Daniel rolled his eyes in disbelief. "We didn't test the water on Abydos."

"This is a jungle. Do you know how many water parasites there are in jungles? Ever heard of Bilharzia?"

Daniel's answer was to perform a perfect swallow dive into the water, before surfacing and spitting out what looked like another pint of pool water in what O'Neill felt was deliberate provocation.

"Don't come whining to me if you get a Candiru in your urethra!" O'Neill yelled at him. "And stop swallowing the freakin' water!"

Unfortunately, after years on digs in Egypt and then a year on Abydos, Daniel always acted as though germs were something people just made up to frighten children with anyway, and just made a face at him. Not for the first time O'Neill thought how much easier his task would have been if it had been Daniel struck down with the mysterious disease and Carter who'd accompanied him on this little jaunt to the far side of the planet. Quite apart from the fact she would probably have been able to hotwire those Goa'uld rings, she would have known about what you did and didn't do in the jungle, and if she hadn't she would have listened to him when he damned well told her.

He automatically scanned the bush for any signs of suspicious rustling before glancing back to check on Daniel. His teammate appeared to be reveling in the warm clean water against his skin, lying on his back and floating dreamily across the surface of the pool, while telling him all about the cultures the Goa'uld might appropriately have transplanted to this environment.

"…the oldest significant Mesoamerican culture and so possibly most likely candidates for transplantation would be the Olmec whose civilization we think dates from around 1400 BC, a time when we know the Goa'uld were definitely 'harvesting' hosts…"

O'Neill was tuning him in an out like a radio station he only half wanted to listen to; checking back every now and then to ensure Daniel was still talking and therefore still breathing and not being stripped clean by piranhas, suffocated by an anaconda or eaten by a jaguar, but basically leaving him alone while he was – if not quiet – at least reasonably contented. He took out his sidearm and checked the clip again. It definitely didn’t appear to have been tampered with, suggesting whoever had slipped it to him had been friendly. But if Harun was on their side why the hell had he sold them down the river to Onuris? The question asked and answered itself. The prophecy. Everything came back to that damned prophecy. Whether they lived or died might end up being totally dependent on a thousand-year old inscription detailing events that hadn’t even happened yet. It would be ironic if Daniel ended up dead because something had been lost in translation.

"…and we know they had a number of different gods, including deities that later evolved into Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl, both of whom appear through Mesoamerican mythology under a variety of different names suggesting there may have been one or two Goa'uld – or other alien entities – resident on Earth over a significant period of…"

He felt in his pockets to assess their supply situation then went over to Daniel's vest and sorted through its contents as well. Originally Daniel's only input into the contents of his vest pockets had been to go through them with the same curiosity as a child opening a Christmas stocking, but he had since started requesting variations on the usual Air Force equipment. So as well as the extra chocolate and coffee rations there might be all kinds of other weird and wondrous things Daniel was carrying around with him. O'Neill had long since decided that as long as Daniel wasn't ditching anything essential to make room for his own stuff he was going to turn a blind eye to it.

"…and of course the Olmec, the Teotihuacans, and the Maya did all construct pyramids which, although significantly different from the Egyptian pyramids in some features do also contain some remarkable similarities to…"

O'Neill made a face as he found another squashed granola bar that had definitely seen better days, but didn't discard it. He knew from experience how difficult it could be to obtain food even from apparently lush terrain. Testing strange fruit was a slow and tedious process. Not that he would be climbing any trees with this leg to retrieve it anyway. And although he'd never actually asked Daniel what his tree-climbing skills were like he suspected they might not be up to much.

"…and we know that Hathor at least did travel from Egypt to Central America and for all we know she might have been worshipped as a goddess by both cultures…"

Daniel's vest seemed to have lost about half of its contents, possibly in the temple when the priests had taken him prisoner; whenever it had happened it was definitely weighing a little light. O'Neill delved into the first pocket. Good. Matches. Plenty of them although in his experience even plenty was never quite enough. No lighter. No magnesium firestarter. Salt tablets. Chocolate. Definitely not Air Force issue and now looking even more squashed than that granola bar, but still a good fat source. Sun screen. Something called Benadryl that was probably for Daniel's allergies. No Tetracycline, and Daniel had really been slapping on that antibiotic cream last night. They might have to ration it a little more carefully. A flare. A notebook with a page of useful gate addresses, which, going by its dog-eared appearance, Daniel had been carrying around since after their escape from Hadante. A ballpoint pen and a pencil.  Some water-proofed toilet paper. No water sterilizing tablets. No potassium permanganate. No snare wire. No fish hooks. No GDO. Some bandaids, and the standard issue packet of condoms, which Daniel probably didn't even know were in his vest but would make good water bags if they lost the canteen. He doubted they were going to find another use for them on this trip.

"…Of course it's difficult to separate the Quetzalcoatl who was the enlightened leader of the Toltecs from the god Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent…"

"Yeah, that's always been a big problem for me too." O'Neill tried not to roll his eyes in disbelief. He knew Daniel found this stuff fascinating but he only had to hear one of those damned unpronounceable names and his brain just didn't want to know. It was sometimes difficult to believe Daniel did this kind of thing for fun.

"…in either guise it's very difficult to imagine someone who was essentially beneficent being convincingly portrayed by a Goa'uld, but I'm definitely betting Huitzilopochtli was a Goa'uld. That was the Aztec sun god who was said to require constant nourishment with sacrificial blood taken from prisoners of war. If he wasn't continually appeased, their legend insisted the universe would be overtaken by the forces of darkness, which was why they had to keep expanding their empire to have enough victims to feed his blood lust…"

O'Neill sighed heavily. It might well turn out that some of this stuff Daniel was telling him – or attempting to tell him because he certainly wasn't listening – would turn out to be relevant. Going by the usual information to usefulness ratio, probably about five percent of it. He needed to think about their strategy so telling Daniel to can it did have some appeal. However, hurting Daniel's feelings had no appeal whatsoever and for all he knew this was making Daniel a much happier person. O'Neill had needed to check out the constellations to know what time of day it was; maybe Daniel needed to check out his Mesoamerican cultures to see what kind of civilization they were likely to run into. You didn't keep a dog and bark yourself, so by the same criteria you didn't keep an anthropologist and not let him…anthropologize.

"…which is what makes me think it's less likely to be an Aztec civilization. At least I'm hoping so because of Xipe Totec, the vampire god, as any Goa'uld taking on that role is one we really don't want to meet. And, of course, by the time of the Spanish conquest up to fifty thousand human sacrifices a year were being made to Huizilopochtli. However, the description of Quetzalcoatl being forced to depart because of the enmity of Huizilopochtli, Tlacahuepan and Tezcatlipoca does suggest there might have been a clash between two alien cultures. If Quetzalcoatl was I don't know…an Asgard or one of Nem's race he could have been forced out due to a takeover bid made by an alliance of Goa'uld. Teal'c did tell us the Goa'uld will band together against anyone they perceive to be a common enemy so it's possible another…"

Glancing back at Daniel to see if showed any signs of winding down or getting out of the water, O'Neill noticed a faint but persistent current was towing him gently to what he was thinking of as south east. O'Neill hauled himself to his feet to explore the perimeter of the pond. Examination revealed the pool to be the result of a depression in a slow-moving stream. A steady if gentle overflow trickled over huge moss-covered stones. O'Neill judged they were probably reasonably close to the source, but they had reached this pool enough hours after dawn the water had been warmed by the sun's rays to its present acceptable temperature. He nodded in satisfaction. Not only would Daniel be much more pleasant company from here on in, they'd found their water source to follow and it was leading in pretty much the direction they had been hoping to take.

It also stood to reason that any people who the Goa'uld had brought here would have needed water to survive so by following this baby stream they stood a much better chance of finding some signs of civilization. Of course, as there seemed to be a few billion miles of rain forest in the vicinity, that civilization might not be close at hand…O'Neill quickly dismissed that thought. Doubts weren't going to achieve anything here. Determination and optimism were definitely going to be their watchwords on this trip.

A rustling behind him, made him turn around so quickly he almost overbalanced. Damned leg. He stayed still and listened. The rustling didn't sound again but he was almost sure he sensed something or someone nearby. Keeping his gaze fixed on the place where the sound had come from and reaching for his sidearm, O'Neill said quietly, "Daniel?"

"What?"

"Time to go."

Out of the corner of his eye, O'Neill was aware of Daniel pulling himself up onto one of the flat rocks before getting to his feet, water dripping in rivulets down his naked skin. Daniel ran a hand through his hair and water droplets made tiny prisms in the sunlight. The clear water stuck to his eyelashes, trickling down his bare chest and long legs before tracing wet footprints on the warm surface of the stones. O'Neill gritted his teeth, hoping Daniel would get dressed quickly , damnit. He was all for the natives being friendly, but he wanted it to be for the right reasons. And he would have preferred it if they were both in a better position to defend themselves from any attack. Daniel might not be the best soldier in the world, but he still functioned a hell of a lot more efficiently when he was dressed.

Not looking at him and shaking out his boxer shorts before pulling them on without needing to be told, Daniel said quietly, "Company?"

"Not sure." O'Neill kept his gaze fixed on the undergrowth but nothing was moving. "Could be an animal, could be a bird, could be half the Aztec nation." It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'Get your clothes on now , Daniel,' but he bit it down. Daniel was getting dressed as fast as he could, which was admittedly at about half the speed of any other member of the SGC, but there were at least now significantly less of his teammate's assets on display. The rustling sounded again and O’Neill tightened his grip on his sidearm. He didn’t want to have to kill anyone but he wasn’t going to risk getting a blowpipe in the back of the neck when Carter and Teal’c needed him to be staging a rescue, not dying of curare poisoning.

As the peccary burst out of the undergrowth it took all of O’Neill’s self-control not to automatically squeeze off a shot. He barely got out of the creature’s way as it thundered towards the pool, jumped in and swam off. Swearing as he flexed his injured leg and tried to regain some dignity, it occurred to him that putting a bullet in that overgrown guinea pig might not have been such a bad idea, and if he and Daniel were hungry later he was going to be kicking himself. He glanced across at his teammate to see what Daniel was thinking. The younger man frowned. "I wonder what it was running from?"

O’Neill moistened his lips. "Hands up who doesn’t want to hang around here to find out?"

Daniel’s hand shot into the air with the speed of a born teacher’s pet and despite the throbbing in his leg, O’Neill couldn’t repress a smile. "Okay, Daniel: let’s strategically withdraw the hell away from here…"

***

Sitting beside Major Carter, Teal'c was trying to remain calm and positive but it was becoming increasingly harder. He had hoped he might have heard from Harun by now but no one had visited them to bring food or water, or – more importantly – the medicine he so desperately needed for his ill teammate. With O'Neill and Daniel Jackson beyond his reach and his protection, and Major Carter fading with every hour, Teal'c had never felt so alone.

He was sure that if he could just get to their equipment he could use the antibiotics they had left to save her. Aware that his own protection from infection had left him ignorant of the possible dangers to his companions, he had taken the time to discuss common human ailments with Janet Fraiser and their likely cures. So he was aware that a virus could not be treated with penicillin but that many other illnesses could. He believed the one currently afflicting Major Carter to be pneumonia, against which antibiotics should be effective, and he knew there was a broad-spectrum antibiotics shot among their remaining medical supplies. He also knew Major Carter needed to be kept warm, given plenty of liquids, and something to stop her temperature from spiraling ever higher. He would also have given several years of his life for something that would have stopped the pain in her spine and legs. Every time she moved – trying to escape memories of both her past and that of Jolinar of Melkshur – the action made her whimper and he would flinch in sympathy.

In the nearly three years since he had become a member of SG-1, Teal'c had learned this was the one thing he could not endure – to have to watch one of his teammate's suffering and be unable to do anything to alleviate their pain.

"Major Carter?" he said her name gently. There was not a great deal of water left but it was time she drank a little more nevertheless. By the latticed light pattern on the far wall he judged it to be late afternoon but time seemed unimportant. The deadline Onuris had set for Daniel Jackson became meaningless when Major Carter was so ill it seemed unlikely she would survive another night. He laid a hand on her forehead and her skin almost burnt his palm. This was how Ry'ac had been when his body had been wracked by the illness O'Neill had called scarlet fever. Without the intercession of the larval Goa'uld which had once dwelt within Teal'c, Ry'ac would have died. It had almost killed Teal'c to make his son a slave to the false gods, bound to their offspring forever for his mere survival, but nevertheless it had saved Ry'ac's life.

There was a thought tugging at his consciousness. A possible means to save Major Carter from the sickness destroying her. But he tried to push it away. It would not come to that. He would not take that path. Even death –

He remembered seeing his friends shot down before his eyes by Apophis on the Nox world. Thought of Daniel Jackson burning to death screaming for help. Of O'Neill skewered through the shoulder by that metal spike to the wall of the 'gate room. When his friends had been hovering perilously at the very point of death, there was nothing he would not have done to save them; to prevent that staff weapon blast reaching Major Carter; to douse the flames devouring Daniel Jackson; to destroy the infection killing O'Neill. The memory of their anguish in those moments still seared him, even though in Daniel Jackson's case, there had never been any pain; never been any flames consuming him; only the memory of his death left as a slow burn in all his teammate's memories. So, he knew he would not be able to let Major Carter die if there was a way to save her.

But he must find a better way to save her than that.

A scuffling sound made him look up, the thin afternoon sunlight temporarily obscured by something. Someone?

"Harun?" Teal'c called the name hopefully. He tried to make out the man's face but he was just a silhouette, a shadow on the wall.

There was a pause before Harun answered him. "How is she?"

"Dying," Teal'c told him. "Have you the medicine I spoke of?"

"I am not sure I –"

"If you do not retrieve it quickly she will undoubtedly die."

Harun's voice was full of sorrow. "So it is written."

Although Teal'c had feared as much it still tore through him like the blast of a staff weapon to have it confirmed. But he was rallying in seconds. "You can save her."

"It is not written that she was saved."

"I saw you put a weapon into the pocket of Colonel O'Neill. Was that written?"

There was another long pause before Harun said, "It is written that the followers of the Chosen One gave his avatars what help they could."

"Then help us. Help Major Carter. The medicine we carried will save her. You have only to bring it to me."

"It is written that Compassion died and was mourned by all."

Teal'c said something in his native tongue which he knew would have shocked even Bra'tac had he overheard it. He said harshly, "Compassion already died on this world when you allowed Daniel Jackson to enter the temple even though you knew what awaited him there. And Compassion died a second time when you delivered myself and my companions to the Jaffa of Onuris. Major Carter, however, can still be saved."

"It is written that the Chosen One was betrayed by those who had awaited his coming. We had no choice but to deliver you to the lion guards."

"You are as much slaves to a prophecy as the priests of this temple are slaves to their false god. What difference does it make if you worship the Goa'uld or another when you are still prisoners of your own stupidity?"

"If the prophecy is never fulfilled then we shall never be free from the False God. You, of all people, must understand how important it is for us to throw off the yoke of the Goa'uld."

Teal'c felt the frustration build within him. "And if you will not save the life of Major Carter when it lies within your means to do so, you, and all your people, are not worthy of the freedom you seek."

"I have always believed freedom to be a right," Harun said quietly. "Not something that needs to be earned. It is something any human being is born deserving. Is that not so?"

Teal'c sighed, his anger abating. "It is so."

"If, by saving the life of your friend, I was to condemn every man, woman and child to slavery under the Goa'uld, would that be right?"

Teal'c wished he could look Harun in the eye and understand the importance of what he was telling him. Despite his concern the guards outside might overhear them, he raised his voice: "You cannot find freedom through fear. You are a child, Harun, clinging to your prophecy as a frightened infant clings to its mother's hand. But it is only another shackle that imprisons you. Let go of it. Drive out the Goa'uld who seek to enslave you because you know them to be false. Save the life of Major Carter because you know it to be the right thing to do. Only then will you know true freedom."

The shadow disappeared from the wall, the square of latticed light playing on the stonework to reveal a tiny lizard which ran across the surface. Teal'c closed his eyes. The sun would be sinking soon, his teammate's life ebbing as gradually yet inexorably as the light fading from the sky. There was a time when he had believed in absolutes; when the division between right and wrong had been very clear to him, perhaps because he had so often been forced to do wrong against his will. But now the boundaries between the two were blurring. He was no longer sure he had the strength to watch a friend die. Even if it was the right thing to do.

***

O'Neill had met a few mercenaries in the course of his work and as he recalled they'd all been crazier than a sack full of weasels. At the time, he'd naively presumed their personality problems had been caused by an internal struggle between their consciences and greed; thought of them as men haunted, men in denial. Men like himself. Now he was tending more towards the theory that hanging around in jungles when it wasn't your natural environment just did that to you.

He looked around at their surroundings with ill-concealed loathing. Mountains soared in all directions, cloaked in green, their summits covered by a permanent pall of mist. They were simultaneously too high and too low; the air still a little thin for comfort yet the terrain hemming them in on all sides. The stream they were following curled and writhed like a Goa'uld in search of a host; there were only scattered glimpses of the sky. For most of the time they were surrounded by greenery dripping and rustling down the backs of their necks. The noise was constant. The yelling of howler monkeys and the screeching of birds he never got to see because the damned forest obscured everything. Lianas trailed from every impossibly tall tree, crisscrossing each animal track they managed to find like giant cobwebs, tripping the unwary and the lame with gleeful persistence. He was getting a headache from the way the sunlight first dazzled then disappeared like a strobe light at a disco every time the trees rustled; illumination slanting through the throttling foliage to bathe a clearing in sulfurous brilliance one minute and then leaving them to stumble through cobalt gloom the next.

They needed a machete apiece, and they had a sidearm and a pocketknife. Creepers and undergrowth tore at them spitefully. Every trail they tried to follow was so narrow one or the other of them was constantly catching a foot in the encroaching undergrowth and stumbling. All the colors were too bright; the vegetation too lush; the trees too damned tall. The green vines which coiled around the tree trunks were festooned with flowers overblown before they were barely out of bud and sticky from overflowing nectar; even the buzzing of the trillion unrecognizable insects was too loud. Everything in the whole damned jungle was as garish and dangerous as a poisonous snake…

"Do you want to rest?"

Daniel propped him up against a tree and O'Neill dragged some air back into his lungs. So much for Daniel's bath. They were both dripping with sweat again, their t-shirts soaked and clinging to their skin. Still, one thing about being in a rain forest there was always a tree to lean against. Right now he couldn't think of much else it had going for it.

"There's another of those big blue butterflies."

The brilliant-colored insect fluttered past, sunlight pouring through its indigo wings, while he watched Daniel watching it in fascination. The younger man said thoughtfully, "Do you think the Goa'uld brought all the flora and fauna here when they brought the people? Because if they did, the idea of entities chosen by a deity to safeguard breeding pairs of each species could have its roots in the Goa'uld terraforming other planets to harness hosts. This could be the basis for the story of Noah's Ark, right here."

Daniel craned his neck to watch the butterfly disappear into the jungle. "You know we really ought to have a botanist and a zoologist come and take a look at this place. There could be variants here unknown on earth. There could be animals still surviving here that have become extinct on earth since the Goa'uld left. A sort of inter-galactic Madagascar."

O'Neill sighed and put a hand up to his aching head. "Daniel, you know I'm fond of you, right?"

Daniel blinked in surprise. "Right."

"So if I should – by some chance – at some point in today's travels, tell you to shut the hell up before I maim you, you'll know I don't mean anything by it, right?"

Daniel considered the point. "Um – okay, I think. Why? Are you…likely to?"

O'Neill rested the back of his head against the creeper-ridged trunk of the tree and gazed up at the shimmering canopy, splinters of sunlight finding their way through the swaying leaves to sting his eyes. Grabbing another much-needed breath, he said, "It's a definite possibility." He met Daniel's troubled gaze and grimaced. "Look, I'm just warning you in advance, I hate this freakin' jungle, I hate being on the wrong side of the planet from Carter and Teal'c, my leg hurts, and you're the only guy within yelling distance. Just – don't take it personally if I have to vent a little later."

"So you want – advance absolution for being a jerk if the urge should come upon you?"

"Yes."

Daniel looked at him for a moment and then shrugged. "Okay. Consider yourself absolved." He glanced around, obviously trying to get his bearings and equally obviously failing. "We should keep moving."

Sighing, O'Neill pushed himself off the tree trunk and put his arm around Daniel's shoulders. He hated being dependent on someone else, but he also didn't want to break that wound open again. Things festered so much faster near the equator.

"At least the air isn't so thin now we're lower," Daniel tightened his grip as the wounded man stumbled on a creeper. "And if Onuris was planning to send some Jaffa after us when no one was looking – which doesn't seem outside the bounds of possibility – they're going to have a hell of a job finding us down here. And – "

"And thank you, Pollyanna." O'Neill winced as he felt that reproachful glance laser his cheekbone. "Sorry. I just don't see how any kind of significant civilization could possibly exist in a place this. This is mud hut country. No one who lives here – supposing anyone lives here – is going to have developed any technology we can use."

"Jack, the Incan empire stretched for 3,500 miles from northern Ecuador to central Chile. These were not people who lived in mud huts. They had vast cities built of stones so perfectly cut that even hundreds of years later explorers couldn't find any gaps for a vine to get a foothold between them. The Incan city of Machu Picchu lies two thousand miles up an almost unclimbable mountain and covered more than – "

"What technology did they develop? Airplanes? Tanks? Time machines that mean we can get back to the temple before we've even left it?"

Daniel cleared his throat. "Um…no. Actually they didn't even have the wheel but – "

"No wheel ?"

Daniel indicated their surroundings. "What good would it have done them to invent the wheel, Jack? Even if we found a sports car parked around the next bend in the river with the keys in the ignition, how could we drive it in this kind of terrain? People develop the skills and the technologies they need to evolve within their own culture and environment."

O'Neill held up a finger, speaking very clearly so there could be no possible room for misunderstanding. "Okay, from your knowledge of…Mesoamerican cultures tell me something which anyone likely to live in a place like this might have developed that could conceivably be of some use to us in getting back to Carter and Teal'c."

"Well this isn't really Mesoamerican terrain, it's more like the Andes and the Amazon basin, suggesting the transplanted populace are more likely to be – " Obviously seeing the look in O'Neill's eyes, Daniel cleared his throat. "Okay. Useful stuff the Inca developed. Well they made roads that went straight through the mountains, and they um…" Daniel sighed, closing his eyes. "Nothing."

" Nothing ?"

"Jack, I don't know what you want me to say."

"Well if there's no hope of finding anything that will help us, what the hell are we doing here? At least in those caves we had a possible way back!"

"What choice did we have?" Daniel countered reasonably. "You said it yourself – fiddling around with Goa'uld technology is not something you or I are any good at. We could have stayed there for a month and made no progress whatsoever. We have to use the skills we have. And you know how to survive in a jungle and I know how to get information from any indigenous people or remnants of their civilization. We have to do what we can with what we've got, Jack."

O'Neill sighed. Daniel was being so patient with him, willing him not to be angry or miserable when it would be so much more useful if he could just be positive. The anger evaporated like raindrops on a hot sidewalk. He couldn't help noticing the way Daniel had said 'you know how to survive in a jungle' so confidently; it obviously not occurring to Daniel even for an instant that he might not know how to take care of them both in a jungle. You couldn't buy that kind of faith. You earned it, or you had it given to you even when you hadn't earned it, and it carried a price. And right now the price was to stop being pissy with Daniel just because he was the only person around for him to vent his frustration on at not being able to rescue the rest of his team. Suck it up, Jack.

He rested a hand lightly on Daniel's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "You're right. We do what we can with what we've got." He glanced around at their terrain again. "We…follow the river until we come to signs of civilization and we hope the Goa'uld have left us something useful. It's a good plan."

"Well it's the only one we have right now." Daniel gave him a flicker of a smile. "So even if it sucks, we're kind of stuck with it."

***

She was trapped in this memory and she couldn't get out.

" Just tell me one day we're going to be okay…Just tell me one day we're going to be okay."

But she'd already forgiven him. Hadn't she? Hadn't she told him it wasn't his fault? That she didn't blame him. How could she withhold her forgiveness from him when he needed it so much? Mark was wrong, he was so wrong. She'd said it herself: that his career had always mattered more to him than they did, but in her heart she'd understood. The part of her that wanted to do more than just stare into the eye of Eta Carinae, the part that wanted to walk on the surface of other worlds, couldn't fail to understand how a man could love both his work and his family. She'd tried so hard to hate him; the military; the devotion to duty which had kept him so late at work her mother had given up on him and taken a cab home; the devotion to duty which had effectively killed her mom. And for a while she'd almost succeeded. But she'd only been faking what Mark had been feeling. She couldn't hate what she could all too easily comprehend. And when he'd asked not for her forgiveness but for the promise she might one day be able to forgive him, that brittle rage keeping the grief at bay, keeping him at bay, had crumpled.

Coughs tore at her, stabbing her in the back with their intensity, something that looked like blood spattering onto the hand she put up. She wiped off her palm in revulsion. Her father needed her right now. She couldn't afford to be ill.

She could have blamed him more easily for always loving her best. Although he'd tried not to play favorites, she'd always known she was the one he preferred. Knowledge carrying a heavy guilt tax. Why had he always made her his favorite child anyway? Because she was the girl? Because she was the one who was so like him despite all her efforts to deny it? For whatever reason, he had been guilty of loving her more than her brother, making her party to a crime against Mark she'd never wanted to commit.

It was so hot in here. Sulfur clawing at her throat, searing her every time she swallowed; despair gnawing into her heart like termites in a timber yard, heat licking through her tendons, muscles turned to chewed string, those damned coughs that tore her chest and felt like someone was stabbing her in the back. Oh God, Apophis had told her he would kill her father if she wouldn't tell him the code…The heat was too much. Dreams wrapping themselves around her mind like memories…Waking to a different heat, brain slurring like a drunk's serenade. Daniel. So grubby. Very pale beneath the dirt. He looked different without his glasses. She thought they made him look vulnerable; a part of him which could be broken by a squeeze from one bullying hand. But now she realized he looked vulnerable without them as well; blue eyes too exposed, and because this was Daniel, every thought too exposed as well. He was telling her Apophis had lied. Her father was still alive. Oh thank God, thank…

"They brought you back and took Jack."

Oh Daniel, don't say it like that, like you thought you'd never see me alive again and every second I was away ate into your soul like an acid spill, like it ripped out your guts when they took the Colonel and it's tearing you to pieces even now. Don't let Apophis see how much you care. Sometimes I worry all he'd need to do is hold a gun to one of our heads…The Colonel will be okay. The Colonel has to be okay because we'd all be lost without him. And no one more lost than you…

Don't tell him that. He knows we're all he has now. He doesn't need reminding. Daniel, he'll come back, you'll see. And if they take you, they'll bring you back as well because I damned well won't let them do anything else. With the Colonel out of action, I'm next in command and I will get you out of here, Daniel, I swear. I'll get us all out, somehow. Alive. In a minute. When my head stops swimming. I just need to think…

Dad?

He was calling her; she had to go to him. Had to make him hold on, somehow.

"Major Carter?"

She awoke with a gasp to find herself cradled in Teal'c's arms. There was so much comfort in that strong chest against her back. He was offering her water, brackish, almost as discolored as the stuff they'd had to drink in the naqadah mines when Daniel…

She coughed again, wincing as it hurt her in so many places, wasting the water she'd tried to swallow as it spattered onto her chest. "Daniel?" Hadn't he been there just a minute ago?

"Daniel Jackson and Colonel O'Neill are not here."

"No, Apophis took the Colonel. Daniel told me." She looked around for her father. It was so dark in here. It hadn't been that dark before. And where had all the heat gone? Her sensitized skin was flinching from the chill air, trying to evade it. "Dad?"

"Your father is not with us, Major Carter. He is with the Tok'ra."

'With the Tok'ra.' She was glad she knew what it meant or she might have thought it was the Chulakian way to say 'with the angels'. Mom was with the angels now. Except she didn't believe in angels. Never had. Nereem telling her she looked like an angel. She wondered how he was now. How Schröedinger was now. If they were happy living with the Nox…

God, it hurt so much when she coughed; it felt like someone was taking a flame-thrower to her lungs from the inside. The sand had tasted just like this in Desert Storm. The baking heat of Abydos had made her think of a war zone and she'd been taken aback by her own conditioning. Once upon a time dunes had meant vacation time to her; a place to build sandcastles and paddle in the sea; now they seemed to signify the wreckage of a crashed 'copter, the stink of spilled gasoline in the seconds before it ignited. How the hell had that happened? How did you get back to the sandcastles again? Thinking of the look in the Colonel's eyes on P8X-873 she guessed you probably never did.

Wasn't the Colonel back yet? Daniel would be so worried. She'd better reassure him.

"Daniel?"

"Daniel Jackson is not here."

Teal'c had told her that before but she knew he was mistaken. Daniel was around here somewhere, probably huddled over in the far corner hugging himself and imagining the worst. She ought to tell him the Colonel would be fine. Everything would be fine. She'd find a way out of here. It was her fault they were in this mess; they'd let themselves be cast into hell for her sake. Maybe she'd been wrong about Bynarr, but even though their escape plan had failed, they knew where the rings were now. She was going to get them out of here.

Water. Teal'c was helping her to drink. For such a strong man his touch was so gentle, the way he was stroking her sweat-dampened hair back from her forehead, holding the wooden cup at just the right angle so she could sip without choking. Oh, although it hurt so much to swallow, that water was wonderfully cool against her burning throat. Another sip, and another. She could have drunk five times as much but she'd better pretend her thirst was assuaged. Had to leave some for the others.

"Thanks, Teal'c." Her voice was so hoarse she hardly recognized it. "Is the Colonel back yet?"

There was an odd pause before he answered her. "Not yet, Major Carter."

"Tell Daniel not to worry. Apophis wants information. We're his ticket out of here, he can't afford to kill us." There was a lot more she wanted to say but it hurt to talk. She squeezed Teal'c's hand. "I'll get us out of here. Just have to…sleep, but then I swear…Tell Daniel…"

That memory was waiting for her, a continuous loop. Stuck in the bedroom, in her past, in her grief, with the ever-present knowledge behind it her father was dying by degrees elsewhere even as he was asking for her forgiveness here. As she drifted back into the nightmare, she remembered that Teal'c hadn't been with them on Netu. Teal'c had been on the tel'tak. They'd got it wrong somehow, slipped into an alternate universe where things hadn't happened as they should. But if that was the case. If Teal'c wasn't there to redirect the transporter beam; to whisk them away from the fireball the Tok'ra were going to make of Netu; then how could they ever get home…?

***

They made camp in a clearing. The rain had arrived, presumably on schedule, at approximately 4pm and continued for the next three hours. They had sheltered beneath something whose huge leaves had kept at least some of the downpour off them, but neither of them could exactly be described as 'dry' and O'Neill decided a fire was a necessity. It was still less than twenty-four hours since he'd been worrying about Daniel getting pneumonia after all. The wood was mostly mossy and green; everything starting to rot apparently two minutes after it hit the forest floor, but along with the smoke and the sparks it did also provide a little comforting warmth.

He'd checked around for leeches and found they were still too high up for the ground to be damp enough to harbor them, making building a shelter to keep them off the earth less of a necessity. He didn't want Daniel and himself blood-sucked and bitten all night but on the other hand sending Daniel off to cut bamboo which could split into dagger sharp fragments, or to gather barbed-tip atap fronds which could rip the clothes from your back and the skin from your bones, just made his hair stand on end at the prospect of the potential blinding and maiming which might result. Of course Daniel might turn out to be very dexterous at building raised platforms from the local greenery, but on the other hand he might not…O'Neill told himself the smoke from the green wood would keep off the bugs and hoped for the best.

Daniel had collected quite a haul of fruit and nuts throughout the day. He had managed to climb a couple of trees with an agility the wounded O'Neill had envied, shaking the branches so the fruit would fall – in theory for O'Neill to catch although more often they had either hit the ground or landed on his head – and usually dislodging some enormous orange centipedes at the same time; at least one of which had then had to be fished out of the back of O'Neill's neck. Daniel now laid his spoils out on the ground by the fire and turned them over curiously. "So, do you think these are safe to eat?"

O'Neill looked at him in disbelief. "You told me you recognized them."

"Well I thought I did. I'm not so sure now."

"Daniel it takes five hours to test whether or not a new fruit or vegetable is poisonous, that's why I told you not to bother picking anything you didn't know for sure was edible. Did you make sure everything you picked had a leaf to help with identification?"

Daniel gave him a reproachful look. "Yes. I know that." He held up a lemon-colored but orange-shaped fruit. "This looks okay, doesn't it?"

O'Neill took the proffered fruit and examined it without enthusiasm. He was pretty rusty at this and could have done with someone for company who hadn't spent most of his formative years in Egypt. It had been very enlightening to hear that camel dung burned well if you were short of fuel in hot climates but given that they were stuck in a tropical rainforest it wasn't a whole lot of help. He examined the fruit more closely, something tickling the back of his memory. Oval leaves in opposite pairs; reddish-yellow orange-shaped fruit…O'Neill gazed across at Daniel and then deliberately hurled the fruit into the bushes. "That's strychnine, Daniel. Very useful if we had some rats we wanted to kill. Less useful if we don't want to die in horrible agony."

After a pause Daniel said, "I'm good at finding water in the desert."

O'Neill sighed heavily. "I should have shot that damned peccary." He looked back at the pile of food. "Okay, that looks like cashew nuts but as far as I remember you have to peel and cook them, and as a guy in my old unit damned near went blind steaming them, I'm going to chuck those too. That's mango, we can eat that. That looks like pawpaw, we can eat that as well, just don't get the sap in your eyes. And that's guava, we don't need to cook it and it's got plenty of Vitamin C. Or D. Vitamin something anyway that's good. There's some vegetation by the river that looked hopeful, stuff we can pull up and boil. Can't remember the names of it all but I'll recognize it when I see it…"

He gave the pep talk automatically: There were fish in the river, monkeys in the trees, edible vines, edible fruits, edible nuts, they also had chocolate and a couple of MREs so food definitely wasn't a problem just as long as they were careful and didn't make themselves sick eating anything poisonous. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Him and Daniel starving to death was not exactly their main concern at the moment. Him and Daniel being thousands of miles away from where they needed to be to save Teal'c and Carter from certain death was their main concern, and unfortunately that couldn't be solved by the successful identification of a mango.

O'Neill examined the last few fruits without enthusiasm. "They look slightly less toxic than the granola bar in your vest pocket, but other than that I wouldn't like to commit myself. Better be safe than sorry." He tossed them into the bushes and handed Daniel a pawpaw.

As Daniel accepted the fruit, he said thoughtfully, "Jack, what were you thinking about this morning? I was watching you for ten minutes and it was like you'd gone into a trance or something."

O'Neill shrugged. "I was just thinking about your worshippers and their prophecy, and I don't think we can put a whole lot of faith in some screwed-up version of the Ten Commandments that has me down as the smart one."

Daniel didn't even blink. "Why not?"

"Oh come on, Daniel. I know my limitations and so do you and I know the only member of this team who isn't likely to get an invitation from MENSA."

"You think I'm clever?"

O'Neill looked at the younger man in surprise. It wasn't like Daniel to fish for compliments. He shrugged. "Yeah. Sure."

"Good. Because I am."

The ironic little smile playing around Daniel's mouth as he said it was so endearing O'Neill couldn't help smiling as well. "And so is Sam. And so is Teal'c. Right?"

No argument from him. "Right."

"But when you've been thinking about how smart we all are and how dumb you are by comparison, it's never occurred to you to wonder why we all do what you say?"

"Oh yeah, nothing warms my heart faster than when I say 'Daniel, we're leaving' and you say, 'In a minute, Jack, I just have to look at these squiggles first.'"

Daniel did have the grace to look discomfited. " Usually do what you say."

"Yeah, right, there's the sign of a good leader: when his team usually does what he says more or less around the time he tells them to do it."

"I thought you liked independent thought."

"I do."

"You told me once just because I was now part of a military operation it didn't mean I had to stop thinking for myself."

"Did I? Christ, I wonder what I'd been drinking." Seeing the younger man looking crestfallen, O'Neill half-smiled. "Okay, Daniel, I get the point you're making."

Daniel pursed up his lips. "I don't think you do. I don't think you have any idea how much respect I have for your opinion. Or how impressed I am by all the stuff you know."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Where's north?"

Unhesitatingly, O'Neill pointed past Daniel's left shoulder back up the way they'd come. "There."

"How many Jaffa did Onuris have in the temple with him?"

"In the temple? About sixty."

"See, I didn't know if there were twenty or two hundred. What weapons were they carrying?"

"Only staff weapons. No zats. Didn't you notice?"

"No." Daniel met his gaze evenly. "I didn't need to notice because I knew you would. I didn't bother looking to see where the sun came up or went down either because I knew you would. I didn't check out our provisions. I didn't work out how much water we had or how long it would last us, or when we needed to start rationing it. I didn't check how much ammunition we'd brought. I didn't – "

"Okay, you made your point. I got you. We all do what we're best at."

"Yes, with the minor difference that we the rest of us do what we're best at and we do what you tell us. Maybe not all the time and maybe not right away, but we still do what you say at least ninety five percent of the time and given that we're all so smart you might want to take my word for it that we have a very good reason for following you, Jack. And it has a hell of a lot to do with the fact that we believe in you and we know you never let us down."

O'Neill felt his jaw tense, automatically swatting at a buzzing insect that tried to investigate his ear. This wasn't a conversation he really wanted to be having right now. Or ever. He wasn't sure how he felt about getting affirmation from Daniel. Daniel was someone you gave affirmation to , told him he hadn't screwed up, things weren't his fault, he'd done good; showed him how much you trusted his judgment, told him you believed in him. You didn't get affirmation from Daniel. Except he did, of course. He got affirmation from Daniel every day when Daniel trusted him the way Daniel did. No one had ever trusted him like Daniel except…Except Charlie. His son had always known Dad was there, Dad was strong, brave – wrong sometimes, when he made you go to bed too early when he should let you stay up and watch the rest of the movie, or made you come home when you were playing with your friends – but apart from that Dad was generally right about most things. And the main thing was Dad would keep you safe. Always.

Always.

He heard the shot echoing and winced. When he looked across at Daniel, the younger man had that stricken expression he knew only too well, Daniel wondering what he'd done wrong this time, wondering how he'd put that look on his friend's face. O'Neill winced again and stretched out a hand. He patted Daniel gently on the shoulder. "Thanks, Daniel."

"For what?" said Daniel quietly, his whole body language tense again.

Too many mines in this field, O'Neill waved a hand. "I don't know. Lots of things."

"Scaring the shit out of you? Turning your hair grey? Stranding us in a rain forest on the wrong side of an alien planet?"

"Daniel, there may be days when I say stuff to the contrary, but there has never been a minute since you came back from Abydos when I haven't been grateful for your friendship, and I need you to know that. It'll be something for us both to hang onto the next time I feel an overpowering urge to hit you."

"Oh." Daniel looked both pleased and embarrassed O'Neill was diverted to notice; lowering his gaze self-consciously as he automatically put some more fruit in his mouth. He couldn’t have appeared more disconcerted if O'Neill had just invited him to the High School prom. Daniel murmured, "Thank you," so low O'Neill almost couldn't hear it, and he was reminded again just how much his opinion mattered to Daniel. It seemed so unlikely a guy this clever would give a damn what someone like him thought he forgot that important truth from time to time.

He realized he still had his hand on Daniel's shoulder and squeezed it. "We'd better get some sleep. I'll take the first watch, okay? I'll wake you in a couple of hours."

Daniel nodded and lay down next to the fire. O'Neill put his back against a tree, very aware of the rain forest rustling behind him like a hundred anacondas were slithering towards them slowly. He knew they should both be thinking positively; he should be reminding himself of everything he knew about survival in the bush, and Daniel should probably be mentally reviewing his lost Amazonian tribes again. But looking across at Daniel's face where it was so oddly illuminated by the spitting fire, he recognized that expression only too well and he knew Daniel, like himself, was thinking about Carter and Teal'c, wondering if either one of them was still alive; how long it would be before they found out what had become of them. If they ever would.

***

When he closed his eyes Teal'c saw again the Goa'uld who was murdering his friend, his fingers tightening instinctively on the staff weapon he held; the instant when it charged vibrating down the length of the staff to send a faint tremor into him. Daniel Jackson would die if he did not fire. The wife of Daniel Jackson would die if he did. Even now his memory of the instant when the blast had ripped through Sha're still made him flinch inside. He saw the blast punch through silk and flesh and muscle and bone; saw the glowing triumph of Amaunet turn to a blank stare of surprise that a goddess could die. Saw Sha're's consciousness flicker briefly like a candle just before it was snuffed out. The decision he had made in Amaunet's tent had been the right one. He had always known it, now as then, without any doubt. But sometimes knowing you were right was not enough to alleviate guilt. Daniel Jackson would undoubtedly have died without his intervention; yet Daniel Jackson had undoubtedly suffered terribly because of it. He had saved his friend's life at the cost of his friend's grief. Killed so much hope, so many longed for possibilities, in the instant when he had chosen to send Amaunet and her host to their deaths...

It was the darkest point of the night now; clouds obscuring even the starlight, leaving only the faintest gleam by which he could keep watch over his companion. If Harun had been going to return, he would surely have done so by now.

Major Carter had times of lucidity, would awaken, ask for water which he would give her, ignoring his own thirst to ensure there was enough of the brackish fluid to replace at least some of the liquid she was losing as her temperature climbed higher and higher. They had managed to converse quite intelligently about their situation at various intervals throughout the day and night, but each time she awakened there would be that blurry transition from her fever-sleep to waking. She would look at him blankly and hardly seem to know who he was, would ask again where Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson were before he would remind her of their situation and some clarity would return to her thoughts. She was beginning to dry up like a fallen leaf as the fever sucked liquid from her body, leaving all her joints inflamed so that any movement hurt her. She would be shaking with cold one minute and burning with heat the next, while the coughs were torturing her, growing stronger as she grew weaker. Soon. Perhaps very soon, he was going to have to make the hardest decision of his life.

Looking down at Major Carter as she tossed and turned in the straw, murmuring names of Tok'ra none of them had ever met, recoiling from memories of battles she had never witnessed, Teal'c felt the familiar chill pervade him he had felt so many times in the past. A man with one leg, balanced awkwardly on a makeshift crutch, holding out his hands to ask for death; women and children crying in the background but one child's voice louder than all the others, a child crying 'Father!' As Teal'c had once cried out as his own father was murdered before his eyes by Cronos. Now he must either play Cronos' part or many more would die.

He flinched as the memory seared him of the staff weapon blast cutting down the crippled man, the child's anguish, those tears of disbelief and horror as he threw himself upon his father's corpse.

He knew O'Neill and Daniel Jackson would see this as a greater crime, but the alternative was to stand back and watch his teammate die. As he bent over the delirious woman, Teal'c decided that anything was better than letting Major Carter die. Even this.

***

Daniel was asleep. Stirring a little from time to time but apparently lulled by the sound of water rushing over stones into something approaching peaceful sleep. The old water-over-stones routine always made him want to piss, but it clearly didn't take Daniel that way, and this was the most relaxed O'Neill had seen him in a long time. Of course he was probably just dog-tired from helping O'Neill limp through the jungle for however many hours. You had to be pretty wasted not to notice the howler monkeys exercising their throat sacs, not to mention all those rustlings in the undergrowth doing their best to sound like really big snakes.

O'Neill tossed another log onto the fire. It tried to spit it back at him, choking on moss, sending up a green-tinted flame, thick with sparks and smoke. Maybe this blaze would tell the natives where they were, but it might also keep off the predators, and he had a feeling a jungle this size was bound to contain a few predators. He hadn't done battle with the System Lords for all this time to end up getting bitten by a Bushmaster or eaten by a jaguar; that was damned certain. When the smoke from the rotting wood caught at his throat, the thoughts of Carter and Teal'c he was trying to keep at bay elbowed themselves to the front of his mind. Was she still alive or had the fever killed her? Whatever that illness was it hadn't looked as though it would just burn out by itself. Without medicine she would surely…No. Not one of his team. Not the best goddamned Air Force officer he'd ever served with. He wasn't going to lose Carter, or Teal'c, or Daniel. They were going to find a way out of this stinking jungle and…

He'd seen malaria before and it wasn't that. Not Dengue fever either. Or Yellow fever. It could be Legionnaire's disease…but no, it had come on too fast. Possibly diphtheria but she'd have been inoculated against that. Except whatever it was had probably mutated from its original earth strain and so their immunity might not hold. Which meant even if Teal'c could get hold of some antibiotics they might not work – or they might be extra efficient because the germ infecting her had never come up against penicillin before and had no defenses against it. It was probably just luck it hadn't affected the rest of them. Or else it was close to a strain doing the rounds on Abydos and Daniel had more immunity. He'd spent some time on Abydos himself, and Teal'c had Junior, of course. But Carter had only spent a couple of hours on Abydos, so perhaps that was why she'd got sick when they hadn't – or else she'd just been coughed on by someone who had it while they hadn't.

The fire sparked again and O'Neill reached across to brush a cinder from Daniel's ankle before it singed him. The younger man barely stirred and when O'Neill bent his head to see his face better by the firelight, he saw a smile tugging at Daniel's mouth.

Dreaming of Abydos no doubt. Lost happiness. The scent of your wife's hair, the feel of it brushing against your skin, her lips against yours, her fingers cupping your face, her hunger for you a gift you could never get used to however many times she told you and showed you how desirable you were to her it still made the breath catch in your throat when you saw that look in her eyes…Oh yeah. He could definitely relate.

Daniel had accused him of not taking his marriage to Sha're seriously, and he'd had to swallow down a retort about how Daniel hadn't seemed to be taking it that seriously himself when he was making nice with Shyla after that freakin' sarcophagus had sucked all the sense out of his head. Could have said too that maybe it was a little hard to take a marriage seriously when the groom got married without even knowing he'd done it to a woman he hadn't exchanged a word with. And that one year of being married to a chief's daughter when you were the savior of her entire world wasn't exactly the same as trying to make a go of it when you had mortgage payments to worry about; not to mention a job you couldn't talk about; long periods of separation; a teething baby; in-laws; temptations; all the usual stuff that real married couples had to deal with…

Real married couples? Maybe Daniel had a point. When it came to the long periods of separation, he guessed Daniel pretty much had him licked. Four months didn't really match up to two and a half years after all. And Daniel probably knew what coping with in-laws was like. Kasuf was a great guy but he was from a very different culture and although he'd always seemed to cut Daniel a lot of slack, he expected there had been disagreements. Kasuf was definitely of the school that believed a daughter did what her father told her while Daniel oh-so-wasn't so there had probably been the odd ideological difference there.

O'Neill shifted his position, stretching out his injured leg, resting his back against a convenient tree. One thing about being stuck in the middle of a godforsaken rainforest – always a tree around when you needed one. He estimated he'd now pissed against seven different varieties of hardwood. He'd have to try for some new species tomorrow.

Damn. His teeth had been gritted for so long his jaw was in danger of seizing up. He needed to think about something other than Carter dying of fever and Teal'c being blasted to death by lion guards. Anything had to be better than that. Almost anything anyway – He flinched at the sound of the shot echoing, he and Sara exchanging that single agonized glance, running up the stairs, opening the door, the blood, his child's face. His dead child's face.

"Sha're…"

O'Neill jerked his head up as a log cracked and spat sparks onto his boot. Had he drifted off?

"Sha're…?"

As Daniel stirred, O'Neill hauled himself painfully to his feet, using a handy liana for support, the coarse tendrils tickling his palm as he did so. He limped over to where Daniel was lying and reached down to put a hand on the back of his head. "Shssh, Daniel. Go back to sleep."

Daniel turned over and looked up at him blearily. "Isn't it my watch?"

"No."

The younger man was trying to focus on his wrist. "Yes, it is. That's three hours."

O'Neill looked at his own watch in disbelief. "Since when has twenty-five minutes equaled three hours?"

"You need your sleep." Daniel sat up and nodded his head in the direction of O'Neill's leg. "Can you imagine what Janet would say if she knew you'd been limping about on that leg all day? Don’t you remember what she said when we got back from Netu?"

O'Neill folded his arms. "That isn't how keeping watch works."

"Well it should be."

O'Neill opened his mouth to give Daniel a lecture and then closed it again. Daniel was never going to be able to wrap his mind around the whole military we-do-it-this-way-because-that's-the-way-it's-done thing. And if he was honest he didn't really want him to. He changed tack. "And I'm just fascinated to know how Fraiser's going to react to you being shokmared. I expect that will be ten weeks of psychotherapy before she lets you out on another mission. Not to mention lots of invasive and probably quite painful tests."

Daniel darted him a sideways look. "Jack, we can't hide your leg from Janet, I mean you have a big burn hole in your pants, not to mention a pretty conspicuous wound in your leg, but…"

"But?"

"There's really no reason for her to find out about the shokmar business, is there? You know how she fusses about things like that."

Daniel's best pleading look. Oh yeah. Not bad at all, Dannyboy. Seen better, but not many and most of those from you. O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Fusses over you getting yourself horribly tortured to the point your mind snaps under the strain of it? Yes, she's funny like that. So am I actually."

"I don't even remember it."

"I do." He hadn't meant to sound so grim but that flinch from Daniel told him he'd failed.

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "Jack, you might as well get some sleep. I just keep having bad dreams anyway."

"And you think I won't?" O'Neill gave Daniel his best don't-bother-arguing-because-you're-not-going-to-change-my-mind hardass Colonel look. "I will wake you in two and a half hours."

And that look obviously had a little mileage left in it because Daniel was shooting him a reproachful glance but he was lying back down again. "Complete waste of time," he muttered. "I'm not going to be able to sleep anyway…"

O'Neill timed it on his watch; three circular sweeps of the second hand and Daniel was dreaming of Sha're again. Sometimes they knew each other too damned well.

As he settled himself back against that convenient tree he couldn't help thinking of Carter and Teal'c. He wondered what they were dreaming of right now. He wondered if either of them was still alive to dream.

***

Teal'c sat cross-legged, his back pressed against the chill stone, seeking strength from within for the task which lay ahead. The sun was coming up slowly, a pattern of pink-tinted light playing on the wall beside his head. Soon the sunlight would glide slowly across his skin, reflecting the emblem of Apophis on his forehead. Since reading the Bible of the Tau'ri he had often wondered if the mark of Cain had been the brand of some departed First Prime of a forgotten Goa'uld. There were so many planets he had visited through the Stargate where the sight of that emblem was enough to send people running from him in fear. He had a hundred different screams in his memory; different pitches for different kinds of terror. The fear of death; of pain; of torture; of watching a loved one murdered; screams of those failing slowly with their guts unraveling or cut down so fast their shriek was sliced off half-cried, lodged in their throats forever yet still echoing in his ears.

In a few minutes, light would spill across his chest to gild the hair of the friend dying in his arms. Her breath was labored now, each inhalation an effort sending a stab of pain to her back. It hurt her so much when she coughed, and she coughed so often. It might be pneumonia. He knew the variants and the symptoms, knew which ones needed penicillin, and which needed erythromycin or tetracycline. O'Neill had been brought back with pneumonia as well as a compound fracture to the leg, a cracked rib, and first stage hypothermia after they had found him and Major Carter in Antarctica. Teal'c had insisted on sitting by his bedside until he was sure he was out of danger. Doctor Fraiser had ordered Daniel Jackson out of the infirmary, despite all his protests and pleading, on the grounds he looked as though he hadn't slept in a month, but she had allowed Teal'c to stay, giving him a medical book to occupy him. That was the first time he'd realized just how many diseases his teammates could contract.

He had read until evening had fallen when she had taken the book from him, expression affectionate and exasperated at the same time. "Don't worry, Teal'c. Not even Colonel O'Neill and Daniel could work their way through an entire medical encyclopedia. You don't have to concern yourself with any of these illnesses. That's my job. Just be glad you've got your symbiote."

Daniel Jackson had come back every hour, stubbornly refusing to rest until Doctor Fraiser had taken pity on him and let him lie down on a bed in the infirmary where he could see for himself his teammates really were safe and alive. He had been asleep thirty seconds after his head had hit the pillow. Teal'c had set there with the heavy book on his lap, listening to the sound of his teammates' breathing, thinking how valuable and how very vulnerable they were…

When Major Carter stirred and coughed onto the back of her hand the sputum was rust-colored, blood-tinged. She might be suffering from a form of lobar pneumonia, which penicillin should cure; penicillin which was in their packs if only Harun would –

Harun was not coming. He had to accept that now.

O'Neill had a word for what he'd been doing these past few hours: stalling. He had been stalling; but he could wait no longer. It was better if it was done while she was still asleep in any case. Teal'c moved the sleeping woman over a little, handling her so gently she barely stirred, only whispering "Dad…?" before settling back down on his chest. He pulled up his t-shirt and reached into the pouch he had seen O'Neill flinch from so many times, his fingers closing over the snake-like form of the larval Goa'uld that lived there. Although the infant Goa'uld had saved his life so often, he never lost sight of what this creature truly was: a child of Apophis. And incidentally his immune system.

Choiceless. Arris Boch had made a point of telling them when their options had narrowed close to zero, and he had now reached that place again. If he did nothing, Major Carter would surely die. If he did this, she would live, and there was a chance, given the determination of O'Neill and Daniel Jackson, and their contacts with the Tok'ra, she might be saved and made herself again. Aldwin had told him they could now remove a Goa'uld from a host without killing the host, and Teal'c believed him. Jacob Carter would never give up on his daughter, nor did he believe Martouf would ever rest until she was restored. Teal'c was only sorry he would not be there to find her, but that could not be helped now. He had been forced to make this choice so many times when serving Apophis: deciding who should live and who should die and this one was easier by far. If only one of them could survive then there was no question in Teal'c's mind it was Major Carter who deserved to live and he who deserved to die.

The larval Goa'uld was unwilling to leave the safe haven of its womb. It had been asleep, warm and comfortable inside the protective pouch of his body, and hissed a protest as he pulled it out into the shaft of sunlight, the as yet-unpigmented epidermis twitching as the unwelcome rays touched its sensitive skin.

Tears sprang into his eyes as he laid the creature down on Major Carter's back. He hoped she would understand why he had done this; betrayed her as she slept to her darkest fear. He hoped she understood why he could not simply sit here and watch her die. As the infant Goa'uld began to snake along her uniformed back, Teal'c gently brushed the blonde hair away from the back of her neck. If there were no entry scar O'Neill and Daniel Jackson might not realize she had been changed and she could hurt or kill them if she took them unawares, but he was still very sorry for the pain this would cause her. As the Goa'uld snaked closer and closer, a tear dropped onto the soft golden hair, the sunlight making it glitter like a cobweb sparkling with dew.

***

Go to Part 4

Home