The Quality of Mercy

Part 4

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 4

Jolinar was screaming a warning in her mind. No, ten years of combat was screaming a warning in her mind. Something was yelling at her anyway. And loudly.

She heard that snickering hiss she hated so much, conjuring an immediate memory of that sinuous form twisting in Hathor's taloned hands, eager to embed itself in the Colonel. There was a Goa'uld near at hand. A Goa'uld making for her. Faster than thought, her hand flew to the back of her neck, and as the creature dived, she rolled, its fangs embedded in her hand. She flung it away from herself in revulsion, blood dripping from her hand.

"Major Carter!" Teal'c was grappling with her, holding her still. She hadn't seen such torment in his eyes since they had found his house razed to the ground on Chulak. "You must not fight it."

"Teal'c?" she stared at him in disbelief as he held her wrists flat to the straw-covered floor. Twisting her head round, she saw the larval Goa'uld snaking towards her. "No!"

He was speaking rapidly and despite the fever doing its best to fog her mind fear had given her a clarity she'd been missing for hours. "There is no other way. Without it you will die."

"I'd rather die!" She gazed up at him imploringly. "Don’t do this to me, Teal'c. Don't make me a Goa'uld."

"It is very young. Its power to control you will be greatly diluted. You may well be able to fight it especially as you have the memories of Jolinar to assist you."

"No!" She twisted around trying to break his grip. The Goa'uld was close now, pale form bright in the sunlight, the sight of the veins pulsating beneath its transparent skin filling her with revulsion. It opened its mouth revealing a blood red maw which gaped at her hungrily. "Teal'c, please! Please !"

As it lunged at her he let go of her wrists, his hand closing around the symbiote's throat in one decisive snap of his fingers. It wriggled in his grasp as he stared down at her sorrowfully. "I have been unable to find a way out of this cell and I have not been able to persuade Harun to bring the medicine you need to survive. The fever you have is killing you. The Tok'ra would find you. They could remove the Goa'uld from your body. You would live."

"I'd rather die than live as a host to the Goa'uld." She scrambled backwards away from the squirming thing until she felt the cold stone against her back. "There has to be a better way than you dying because you don't have an immune system, and me being turned into a Goa'uld. Daniel and the Colonel will get here. We just have to hang on." Despite the fever mist blurring her mind she knew that she didn't want to be a Goa'uld despite the confusion swimming all around that thought, in the same way she could see that single shaft of sunlight cutting through the darkness of their cell. She also knew without any shadow of a doubt that she didn't want Teal'c to die.

The Goa'uld was squirming frantically now. If Teal'c didn't either put it back in his pouch or put it in her, it wasn't going to survive. It could suck oxygen from water or from a host but not from the air. She saw the conflict in Teal'c's dark eyes, torn between two possibilities that were equally hateful to him. When he met her gaze the sorrow on his face made her heart turn over. "I am sorry, Major Carter," he breathed the words as though they tortured him. "I cannot let you die…"

The tears sprang into her eyes too. "You promised you wouldn't leave me! You promised!"

The distress on his face tore at her. "I would never leave you."

"Dying is leaving me, Teal'c. If you do this I'll be all alone here with a Goa'uld in my head and you'll be dead. Don't do this to either of us."

"My lord!"

Carter jerked up her head, aware that the sunlight was blocked by something but unable to make it out through her fever-blurred eyes.

"Do not make her a slave to the false gods." Harun's voice.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but he was still just a shadow between her and the sun.

"You leave me no choice," Teal'c retorted.

"I have asked help from the voice of the Chosen One I hear inside my mind. He tells me I should do as you ask even though it may cost us all our freedom. Here is the medicine you asked for."

Something fell from the grating to land softly on the straw. She heard Teal'c gasp something in his own tongue which sounded very like a prayer of thanks, then he was shoving the larval Goa'uld negligently back into his pouch while it hissed and spat its indignation.

It was when she saw how his hands were shaking as he tried to undo the wrapper on the penicillin that she took it from him gently. "It's okay. Let me."

He wouldn't meet her eye as he said: "You know that I did it only to save your life…"

"I know." She couldn't read the instructions on the packet but took two tablets anyway. She reached out and touched his hand. "I know."

"Can you ever trust me again?"

Her eyes widened at the husky tone. She tightened her grip on his hand. "I've always trusted you with my life, Teal'c, and I've always known you'd sacrifice yourself to save the rest of us. That's all you tried to do. And the part of me that isn't scared to death of being turned into a Goa'uld is even grateful. The rest of me might need a few days to catch up."

Teal'c nodded and it tore at her that he was prepared to accept so little. This was how he had been with Daniel after Sha're's death: ready to be hated and feeling he deserved it.

The Jaffa turned to address Harun. "It was not Daniel Jackson's voice which prompted you to bring this medicine, Harun, it was the voice of your own conscience. You do not need any god to help you do the right thing. The good already lies within you."

"You are wrong," Harun told him quietly. "Good comes from without, not within. And by my actions I may well have condemned my people to a life of slavery under the yoke of the false god." Faintly, Carter heard the sound of his footsteps as he walked away.

Carter tried to speak, wanting to call after him and point out that there were other ways to obtain freedom than the method laid out on that tablet, but the coughs racked at her. Teal'c placed a hand on her shoulder, helping her to lie back down in the straw. "Promise me," she breathed hoarsely as he covered her with his jacket once more.

"Promise what?"

"Promise me you'll let me die if the penicillin doesn't work. Don't make me a Goa'uld, Teal'c. Promise me."

There was a long pause before he said quietly, "I promise."

***

Daniel looked at his watch again. Onuris had given them forty-eight hours to get back to the temple. Any way you calculated it they'd now used up thirty and as far as he could see all they'd done was get themselves lost.

Jack kept insisting they weren't lost, of course, because they were following the river. They had a point of reference and a means to return the way they'd come, therefore they weren't lost. But it still felt a hell of a lot like being lost to Daniel. It also still felt a hell of a lot like this was all his fault.

He glanced across at the older man, trying not to let his anxiety show as he did so but probably failing miserably. Jack was hobbling along at a pretty good speed but Daniel wished he would just let him help. He never knew where Jack got off calling him stubborn. He hadn't seen Jack looking this tired since he'd had the language of the Ancients downloaded into his brain: everything working overtime in that grizzled head of his, Stargate addresses, machinery for creating extra power, a cross-section of the DHD which was still their best reference for how that thing fitted together, while Jack's own consciousness trickled away minute by minute like grains of sand through a sieve. When Jack had come back from visiting the Asgard Daniel had been almost afraid to blink in case he vanished again or started speaking Latin. Jack had looked absolutely wrecked but so relieved to be himself again, and still taking a moment to try and comfort a very worried Daniel with his most reassuring smile. Jack had never actually said 'Thank you for everything you did for me. Thank you for believing in me when no one else did.' That wasn't Jack's style. He paid his debts in other ways. Paid them in full too. Not that Daniel had thought of it as a debt. He'd been so in hock to Jack for all the times he'd stood by him or risked his own neck or career on his behalf by that point he'd known he'd never be able to pay him back however many times he helped whisk Jack's frostbitten butt back from Antarctica just in the nick of time or interceded with General Hammond so Jack could go to a Stargate address using an eighth chevron.

"Damned bugs." Jack swatted at something irritably, lurching off-balance as he did so, and Daniel grabbed his arm to steady him.

He set him back on his feet gently. "How are you doing, Jack?"

"Peachy."

Well, Jack was never the best of company when he was hurting. If they got out of this he supposed he'd be on taking-care-of-Jack duty again. The least he could do under the circumstances but still not a prospect that was exactly inviting. Daniel winced as a fern hit him in the face then pushed it aside so Jack could limp past.

"Do you need to rest?"

"No. And stop asking me that."

He was afraid Jack might be running a fever. It was hard to tell because Jack wouldn't let Daniel examine his leg and got tetchy every time Daniel tried to see if he had a temperature; but Jack getting sick or his wound becoming infected was so much the last thing they needed right now it was starting to seem almost inevitable.

He knew Jack was trying his hardest to be optimistic and positive but it kept trickling away again; the fear they might be struggling pointlessly in the wrong direction overwhelming him. Daniel could definitely relate to that. Almost unconsciously they'd slipped back into the way they'd been on Netu; Jack a bit crabby but comparatively passive, leaning on him both physically and mentally, and Daniel trying to be reassuring. Except this time Jack wasn't saying 'We're not dead yet'; he wasn't really saying anything, he was just gazing around at the jungle like he hated it then looking at his watch and grimacing. For Daniel, even louder than the shrieking of the hyacinth-colored parrots and the alarm calls of the howler monkeys were all the things Jack wasn't saying right now. Not just 'This is all your damned fault, Daniel!' but also 'We can't possibly get there in time and we both know it.'

This little outing had come too soon after Netu, that was the trouble. There hadn't been enough of a time lapse for Jack to get his confidence back. Daniel knew that Sokar's artificial hell had been hell indeed for Jack. Separated from Teal'c; Apophis resurrected; people coming to take Sam away and there being nothing Jack could do about it. And then once Jack had been wounded things had got a whole lot worse. Then he couldn't even defend them physically. He'd been so exhausted with pain, blood loss, and the effects of the Blood of Sokar he'd pretty much been a passenger, totally dependent on the rest of them to get themselves home and take him with them. For someone like Jack that was not a good day.

Daniel had spent three years watching Jack's confidence get eroded bit by bit. He still seemed as optimistic on the surface most days, but there wasn't the same certainty in his gaze. In the beginning Daniel knew he, Sam, and Teal'c had probably all been equally guilty of sticking Jack on a pedestal. Thinking of him as a miracle worker. Someone who could solve any problem, right any wrong. And since then Daniel had been mortally wounded and there had been nothing Jack could do except leave him behind. Sam had been turned into what they had believed at the time to be a Goa'uld while Jack hadn't been able to prevent Jolinar blending with her, or keep the Ashrak from almost killing her. And Jack had been forced to stand on the wrong side of the river bank while religious fanatics hung a rock around Teal'c's neck and drowned him right in front of them.

When they'd come back from Chulak the first time, he'd seen someone in Jack who could achieve anything. The man had been through the fire and come out the other side of it. He'd hardly been able to believe this was the closed-off suicidal military hard-ass he'd met a year before. Even then there had been something about the man that made him believe in him; an instinctive reaction to Colonel Jack O'Neill that had made no apparent sense even to him. As a civilian he'd always been a little suspicious of the military, and back then Jack had seemed military down to his Air Force issue socks. Not trusting Jack would have been logical. Feeling from the first moment they met that this was someone who needed his help; someone who mattered; someone significant; someone he could feel safe around and trust, had not.

Jack had seemed capable of achieving anything he set his mind to back then. Daniel hadn't doubted for an instant that Jack was able to find Sha're, defeat the Goa'uld, save the world. He'd just worried the will might not be there, and designated it his job to keep Jack on the right course. Back then he'd seen his role as primarily one of gentle shoving in the right direction. Well, nagging, wheedling, pleading, and downright sulking, had also played a part in his armory of persuasive tactics at times, but he'd mostly seen himself as the means to ease Jack into doing the right thing. It had taken a long time for him to realize there were some things Jack just couldn't do. That he wasn't superman. He made mistakes. Was unreasonable. Made poor decisions some times. Was sometimes just plain wrong.

It had come as a terrible shock to him. Was he supposed to take Jack down from his pedestal, dust him off and interact with him on a different level? Or should he just blame him for not being who Daniel had thought he was? The latter option had been so much easier perhaps it wasn't so surprising he'd decided to choose that one. Because looking back he knew that some of the anger he'd felt towards Jack after Sha're's death had been not just because the man wouldn't believe in him, but also because Jack hadn't managed to make this all come right for him. Jack hadn't been in the right place at the right time. Jack hadn't got Sha're back.

That had been a very bitter pill to swallow at a time when fate had already been force-feeding him wormwood like it was going out of fashion.

"Daniel?"

Daniel gave himself a mental shake, bad memories of the past overcast by an awareness of the present. The jungle seeped back into his consciousness; dripping, screeching, howling and rustling a reminder of where he was now. But it was still a shock to look up and find Jack grubby, exhausted and wounded in a rainforest when he'd expected to see the man standing in a corridor of the SGC thwarting him paternally for his own damned good.

"Daniel, hang on a minute, I need to rest."

"Sorry."

Daniel hastened to help him; Jack swearing as he hopped over a trailing liana and stumbled. "This damned leg – I swear to God the next son-of-a-bitch who points a staff weapon at me…"

As Daniel propped him up against the tree he quickly put his hand on Jack's forehead. It earned him the usual glare and snapped, "Don't fuss , Daniel." But he still had to do it. The man's forehead was hot and sweaty but so was the rest of Jack right now. So was the whole of Daniel right now. But Jack didn't seem feverish. Just pissed off and hurting. Flies buzzed inquisitively around his leg and Jack swatted at them irritably. "Damned bugs."

"I wonder how Sam and Teal'c…" He hadn't meant to say it aloud. Daniel bit his lip. The question was going through his head on a continuous loop at the moment. He knew it was going through Jack's as well, but by mutual consent they weren't voicing it. He winced, "Sorry."

Jack took a deep breath and mopped his brow, catching trickles of sweat which he wiped off on his jacket. He didn't look at Daniel as he said quietly, "We're doing all we can."

"I know. I know."  Daniel also avoided his gaze, turning to look at the greenish waters of the widening river. A line of large moss-covered boulders gave them stepping-stones from this bank to the next; the rocks creating half a dozen tiny waterfalls which sent up a fine spray to cool his skin. He pointed to the stones. "We could cross here if we wanted to."

"What would be the point?"

Daniel winced at the same time as Jack. That had slipped out before the older man could stop it, the utter weariness in his tone speaking volumes.

Jack said quickly, "I didn't mean – "

"I know." Daniel gave him his most reassuring smile while inside knowing Jack was right. What was the point of any of this? They were only moving because it was easier than staying still. They weren't achieving anything and they both knew it. They would never find their way back to the temple in time or out of time. They'd never get out of the rain forest. They'd stumble around in this jungle until one of them got bitten by something deadly or contracted some tropical disease. One of them would die first and the other one would die alone. That was the reality of their situation. Whether they were on one side of the stream or the other, it didn't make any kind of difference.

He wished now he'd done what Jack wanted back in that cavern. If he'd just translated the tablet at least he'd know if this was it. If he knew they failed they could give up now. He could stop dragging a wounded man through this spiteful undergrowth and let Jack get his strength back. He'd been wrong about translating that tablet like he'd been wrong so many times before. Was it any wonder Jack hadn't believed him about the Harsesis? The real mystery was why Daniel had expected him to.

Daniel put a hand up to his head and tried to remember the way Harun had responded to their questions. Maybe he hadn't read the tablet, but Harun had. So had the worshippers of the Chosen One. The people in the temple had all seemed fond of Sam. Because she was Compassion? Or because they knew she was doomed to die? Every time he closed his eyes he could hear Onuris saying: "The woman who pretends to be a goddess is dying. The fever she was given will kill her."

For a moment despair threatened to overwhelm him and then Daniel fought back. He couldn't do this. If he did, Jack would have to reassure him and Jack was definitely entitled to a few hours off from trying to make him feel better. He was the one who needed to be coming up with the good news right now. He was also the one who needed to find a way back to that temple. It was his fault Teal'c was in such danger and Sam was dying of fever and…

And that wasn't going to help anyone so he'd better cut it out right now.

Daniel looked around helplessly. He was trying not to hate this terrain; trying to feel like Hiram Bingham following in the footsteps the fleeing Incas had taken four hundred years before; but it wasn't helping. He didn't want to find a lost city, however splendid or intact. He wouldn't have cast a second glance at a route map to El Dorado right now. He just wanted to get back to the temple of Onuris in the next…Daniel looked at his watch. The next fifteen hours.

"We can do this," he said determinedly.

He looked at Jack, trying to appear confident but probably just looking like someone in need of reassurance because Jack forced a smile for him then squeezed his shoulder again, saying very gently, "Of course we can."

As he took the wounded man's weight, stumbling a little on the uneven track, Daniel found the forest suddenly blurring all around him. For a second he thought it must be tears in his eyes and then he realized the noise around them was deafening. Rain falling.

Rain. That couldn't be right. Surely the equatorial rainfall would follow the same pattern as on earth. Surely it would fall every day at the same time? Daniel looked at his watch again but it was still stolidly telling him it was midday. Then he noticed the way the second hand wasn't moving.

"No!" he said it in dismay, shaking his wrist in annoyance.

"You okay? Did something bite you? Sting you? Let me look."

Seeing Jack's anxious face Daniel realized the man's nerves were still worn ragged; he was just hiding it better than yesterday. He said soothingly, "I'm fine, Jack. But my watch has stopped."

"Jesus, Daniel, don't do that!"

"Sorry." Daniel pulled his sleeve down over the temporarily useless watch.

Jack was muttering irritably as he limped along at a surprisingly good speed, "…place is crawling with Christ knows how many poisonous snakes and bugs and you're yelping like that…"

"I said I was – uh, Jack…?"

"…for all we know even the damned centipedes are – What?"

"Look." Daniel carefully turned the man around, trying to support his weight as he did so, and pointed.

Through the slanting curtain of rainfall they could see the other side of the river. The jungle had abruptly given way to stepped terraces, some cleared for planting, others bristling with a crop that looked very like half-grown maize. As they watched, the rain fell onto the red earth with such ferocity it ploughed up the soil like machine gun fire; the sound of the downpour hitting the maize leaves a new and welcome note in the usual jungle symphony. A green snake slithered across Daniel's boot but he only smiled wider, "I'd say that constituted signs of civilization, wouldn't you?"

***

O'Neill had to admit this terrain was slightly less annoying than the uncleared jungle. It wasn't somewhere he'd be planning to come back to for his annual leave or anything, but it was…better. And Daniel had certainly cheered up again. He'd been talking for at least an hour now without apparently needing to pause for breath. About how incredible it would be if they came across an inhabited Incan or Mayan city. How much they could learn. How they might be able to see some kind of ancient ball game actually being played. "… Tlachtli was so popular across Central America that I'm sure it would have survived in some form. That was a kind of hockey the Maya used to play, Jack. There are the remains of ball-courts all through the ruined cities of the Yucatan and Guatemala…"

"How about that: a hockey game you might actually want to watch." O'Neill sighed as his boredom with this conversation prickled up the back of his neck like an insect.

"…as far as we know, tlachtli was played with a very hard ball which had to be hit through a stone ring using a club…"

He tuned him out again. Only thing you could do with Daniel sometimes. That or kill him. The next time O'Neill tuned back in to Radio Jackson, Daniel had moved away from ball games and was talking about agriculture. With an inward groan, O'Neill realized that the ancient hockey conversation was probably as interesting as Daniel got on this subject. From now on, he was only going to get more boring.

As he picked his way through a field of waving crops, O'Neill swatted at an insect and tried not to sigh too heavily as Daniel stuck another unappetizing example of local agriculture under his nose.

"This is very similar to maize we know was cultivated in the Tehuacán Valley. It's interesting to see the way early MesoAmericans selected from natural mutations to propagate maize that gave more food per cob. We think domesticated maize probably evolved from something called teosinte which…"

"Daniel…"

Nope. Daniel was not in the mood to listen. Daniel was definitely in the mood to talk.

"…of course there's much better preservation of plant remains in the dry cave sites of highland Mexico and Peru, but even in the Tehuacán  Valley we're pretty sure they were eating domesticated maize by as early as 5000 BC – "

"Daniel!" O'Neill gripped his arm and squeezed it a little harder than was strictly necessary. "No one cares."

Daniel blinked at him in disbelief and spread out an arm to encompass the fields. "Don't you realize how fascinating this is?"

O'Neill wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Well, my overwhelming boredom is kind of getting in the way of my fascination at the moment."

"But, Jack, maize was of pivotal importance to the Maya, and the beheading of the Maize God by his counterparts in the underworld clearly symbolized the – "

"Daniel, can we have a little memory check? As in why we're here? What we're trying to do? How writing a paper on the agricultural habits of the people of the Andes is not what we're supposed to be doing right now?"

"Okay – okay, you're right, I'm sorry. I just – you know – "

"Just try and concentrate on one thing at a time."

Daniel nodded determinedly. "Yes. Will do." He dutifully helped O'Neill clamber over some furrows but O'Neill just knew Daniel was already wondering what kind of tools they'd used to do that fairly crappy piece of plowing. Without the trees overhead to filter it out the sun was almost unbearable. He was pouring sweat and his leg was itching and hurting simultaneously. He wondered again how he'd managed to go so many years without hitting Daniel. It was really quite a tribute to his self-control when he came to think about it. It wasn't that he actually wanted him to change. There were just days when he wanted him to be…a little less Daniel, that was all. He didn't think that was so much to ask.

"Did I ever tell you about the plant remains found at Guilá Naquitz?"

"No," O'Neill told him firmly. "And you'd better not try to if you want to keep your teeth."

Daniel darted an assessing glance in his direction. "I think maybe we should get you into the shade. You need to rest that leg."

"What I need is to find a way to get back to that freakin' temple."

There was another pause before Daniel said in a different voice. "I've been wondering if half of the reason why Onuris sent us here was as a…bribe."

O'Neill peered at him through his sunglasses. "Not following you. I remember threats. Like what you could look forward to if by some miracle you managed to get back there." He'd been wondering how Daniel felt about that little welcome committee Onuris had promised him so he wasn't sorry to have a chance to discuss it. It certainly wasn't going to stop him from going all out to get back to the temple and it didn't seem to be slowing Daniel up any either, but he would have liked some reassurance Daniel was going into this with his eyes open.

Daniel waved a hand dismissively. "He was just trying to scare me."

O'Neill sighed. Didn't work though, did it? Why? Because you don't believe anyone would ever really do anything that nasty to you? Because you don't think Onuris' Jaffa would want to? Because you think you'll be able to talk him or them out of it? Because you think I'll think of someway to stop it happening? What if I can't, Daniel?

Daniel continued thoughtfully. "No, I think this was a two-part plan: come back here and see what's waiting for you, but also look what a nice place I'm sending you to so why would you want to come back here." He waved an arm to encompass their surroundings. "I mean, look at it, Jack."

O'Neill did so blankly. "And so? I'm seeing jungle. Lots and lots of jungle. And some withered-looking crops which you had better not even think about cataloguing for me again."

Daniel gave him one of those long-suffering glances that always made O'Neill want to throw something heavy at him. I swear to God, Daniel, you give me that martyr-resigned-to-the-hideous-cross-he-has-to-bear look just once more and I am going to…

"No, Jack." And the weary resignation in that sigh was, O'Neill felt, an invitation to GBH all by itself. Daniel waved a hand to encompass their surroundings. "I mean there's food, water, shelter. You could almost call it…paradise."

O'Neill stopped where he was and took a good look at their surroundings. They were in an orchard of small trees now. He couldn't work out exactly what that fruit was but it was obvious it had been cultivated in some way. The trees were planted far enough apart that they could grow without throttling each other and the ground underneath them had been cleared in the past although it was now liberally strewn with fallen fruit. O'Neill scowled at the mercilessly blue sky through his sunglasses. "Yeah. Regular Garden of Eden." He reached up into the nearest tree and plucked one of the greenish fruit from the branches. Then he tossed it to Daniel. "Here. Have an apple."

Daniel returned his steady gaze for a moment while buffing the fruit slowly on his jacket then took a decisive bite.

O'Neill nodded, took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "You know that's just one of the reasons I was never too keen on the idea of God – God. It's hard to like a guy who's against people having knowledge."

Daniel talked with his mouth full. "This from the man who keeps telling me he'll kill me if I don't shut up?"

"Now, be fair, I've been very careful to use the word 'maim'. Death was never an option."

Daniel swallowed and wiped a trickle of juice from his chin. He regarded the half-eaten fruit curiously. "I think this is definitely a – "

"Ah hah – " O'Neill held up a warning finger. "You can walk out of this orchard or you can limp out of it. Your choice."

"I was going to say 'bribe'," Daniel retorted. "And now we know there are definitely people here that makes even more sense."

O'Neill made a face. If he asked Daniel why, Daniel was going to tell him, and it would probably be a long and very boring explanation. But if he didn't he was never going to know and he had a feeling Daniel was probably right and this was important. He sighed. "Okay. Why?"

Daniel took another bite of fruit. "Well you have to remember that Onuris is perceiving me as a rival. Basically he is seeing me as another – Goa'uld. So he's judging me by his own standards. They don't have the same morality we have, after all, and despite borrowing our bodies for all these millennia I'm not sure they really understand the human psyche that well. If they did Apophis would just have held a gun to your head in Netu and told me he'd put a bullet in you if I didn't tell him what he wanted to know. But the concept of 'friendship' is, I think, completely alien to them. They make political alliances for mutual gain; and they take mates with which to produce more Goa'uld. And it's quite conceivable they have – or believe they have – feelings of affection for those mates. But they don't seem to have any feelings for anyone or anything else."

O'Neill had noticed the way Daniel had gritted his teeth as he conceded the possibility that the Goa'uld might care about their…mates. Apophis had told Daniel he loved Amaunet, and he'd certainly shown her nothing but tenderness in those crowded moments on Abydos after Heru'ur's departure, despite the fact she'd lost the baby he'd been hoping to use as a host, but he knew that wasn't how Daniel wanted to perceive that relationship. "And so?" he prompted quietly.

Daniel collected himself. "Okay – so if I'm a rival wannabe deity, what would I want? What could I be bought off with? Onuris doesn't know how much power I have on this world. You've convinced him turning me into a martyr wouldn't be the best idea he's ever had. He needs to get rid of me but it would be easier for all parties if I actually wanted to stay away. So he takes away what he perceives to be my First Prime – Teal'c, and what he perceives to be my mate – Sam. Then he sends me to a place where I can start over again. But to sweeten the pill he sends me to a part of the planet which is a lush paradise and he gives me you for – company."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Company? What exactly is my role in your little entourage, Your Imitation Go'auldness?"

Daniel took another bite of fruit. "I never said he thought I was a Goa'uld, I said he is treating me like a Goa'uld, in that he is assuming my motivation and desires are the same. Basically, he is presuming I want the same things he does: a nice little kingdom to rule over and some slaves who will treat me like a god." He held out his hands and turned a slow circle. "Here's the nice little kingdom. The slaves are presumably around here somewhere. All I have to do is convince them I'm a god. If I can do that I can get another mate and another First Prime, meaning I won't need to bother him again. At least not for a few decades while I build up an army, and in the meantime my reputation on his part of the planet is ruined anyway because I didn't get back there in time to save Sam and Teal'c. Actually, you have to hand it to the guy, that's not a bad plan."

"And I fit into this equation – where?"

Daniel darted him an apologetic look. "Well, I presume he thinks you're my – protector and, um – companion."

O'Neill took off his sunglasses just so Daniel couldn't fail to miss how very little he liked that suggestion. "I liked Harun's version better. I was the brains of the outfit in that one. Being your bodyguard cum bedwarmer is not my idea of a good job description."

  "I'm just trying to imagine how he thinks I think."

"Well imagine it silently, will you?"

As he jammed his sunglasses back on his nose, he refused to notice that reproachful look Daniel was zinging in his direction. Yes, his temper was fraying and his tongue was consequently getting sharper but Daniel was being incredibly annoying and deserved to get a little snapped at.

The next two hours brought clearer and clearer signs of civilization and O'Neill couldn't help feeling a glimmer of hope flutter in his breast. Where there had once been Goa'uld there might well be the remnants of Goa'uld technology they could use. They had found more and more raised fields of…agricultural produce. Daniel had clearly been dying to tell him exactly what agricultural produce and what its significance might be, but he'd sent a quelling glare in his direction every time Daniel opened his mouth and that seemed to be holding him. Daniel was always easier to intimidate when O'Neill was wearing sunglasses, and when he was feeling guilty and O'Neill was wearing sunglasses he was almost manageable. They walked by the very edge of the field beside a tall bank, automatically trying not to crush any of the crops, the tall maize providing at least little shelter from the sun.

"I think this might be a civilization in decline."

"What?" It was so long since Daniel had said anything that O'Neill jerked his head round in surprise.

Daniel was pulling back a creeper to reveal grey stone set into the bank. "I think we missed the crowning moment of this civilization. Skipped the Preclassic, the Classic, and the Late Classic and are now into the Terminal Classic. I think the same thing has happened to them that happened to the Maya. A gradual disintegration for reasons no one really understands."

He tugged at the creepers and O'Neill watched him struggling with them for a moment before sighing and taking the knife from Daniel's pocket. "Try using this."

Daniel looked at the knife in surprise. "Oh. Thanks." He hacked through the creepers, gradually revealing a flat round stone so large even O'Neill had to stand on tiptoe to see the topmost pictograms. Daniel cleared the face of the stone carefully, fingers brushing creeper tendrils from the cracks as gently as someone easing a scab from a half-healed wound.

O'Neill leaned against a nearby tree to take some of the weight off his leg and looked at the stone without liking. Pictograms decorated the edge of the stone in the same way the glyphs decorated the Stargate but although the 'gate glyphs had taken on a kind of familiarity even for him these were all circles and dots. He was having trouble making sense of the picture in the center but there seemed to be bones and skulls in there, and he doubted that meant anything good.

He watched Daniel still carefully clearing the stone, and remembered that all this annoying information Daniel was always inflicting on him was sometimes invaluable information they needed to save their lives. He wondered just how many times Daniel was going let him tell him to shut up then still obligingly come up with the knowledge he needed afterwards. "What is it?"

"It's an altar stone." Daniel was running his fingers over the pictograms carefully. "Very similar to one found at Tikal. These people must be descendants of the Maya."

"And its significance would be?"

Daniel pointed to what seemed to be some kind of priest in the center of the stone. "The Quiche Maya went through a period of committing human sacrifice to propitiate the gods, which is what is being depicted here. So the people brought here may have been from that era or may have followed parallel cultural lines despite their separation from the Maya left on Earth. This altar presumably dates from that time. However, the fact it's been abandoned suggests they've probably stopped committing human sacrifice."

"You hope."

"I'm definitely hoping so, yes."

"Anything that would tell you who the resident Goa'uld used to be?"

Daniel reached out and brushed some dirt from the altar stone. "Well Mayan hieroglyphs are very difficult to decipher. It's not just a mixed system like Egyptian hieroglyphs that uses logographs for whole words but also has symbols for syllables and vowels and so on, it also has a variety of spelling conventions – "

"Daniel…" He put just a hint of warning into that use of his name. Letting him know he was on report here and if he didn't get to the point pretty damned soon he was going to be spoken to with a singular lack of patience.

"I'm not making difficulties, Jack. There are several different ways to write the same word. If it wasn't for Yuri Knorosov – "

"Daniel! Can you read it or not?"

Daniel gave him a reproachful look, turned back to the hieroglyphs, ran his finger across them and then obligingly translated: "Okay, according to this there were two Goa'uld, working together. I'll have to ask Teal'c how often that happens but I should imagine it was pretty unusual. They seem to have adopted the roles of Hun-Came and Vukub-Came."

I knew you could translate it if you put your mind to it, but you just had to get the damned lecture in first, didn't you? O'Neill swatted at a fly. "Is that good or bad?"

"Well Hun-Came and Vukub-Came were the lords of Xibalba, so basically these two Goa'uld seemed to have taken on the roles of the Mayan gods of the Underworld."

O'Neill grimaced. This was sounding like Sokar's second cousins to him. "Are we talking hell here?"

Daniel was still tracing the pictograms with his fingers. "Not exactly. Xibalba was the place of the dead but it wasn't necessarily a place of punishment for sin although it did contain punishment 'houses'. The word 'Xibalba' is actually derived from the root 'to fear', and from that same root you get the Maya word for phantom or ghost, so really Xibalba was the Place of the Phantoms."

"But these underworld god guys were presumably not up for any humanitarian awards?"

Daniel cleared a little more of the inscription. "Well on Earth they were seen more as opposers and annoyers of men. Here they seem to be a bit more of that. They're depicted as 'mighty' here and called 'slayers of the sons of Xpiyacoc' as though this is something to be celebrated by the populace. Which is interesting, as in Mayan mythology on earth Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu are depicted as hero-gods who – "

"Daniel, I can't keep all these damned unpronounceable names straight in my head and what's more, I don't want to."

"And you know, Jack, sometimes it just isn't possible to tell you everything you might possibly need to know about a very complex four thousand year old civilization in three sentences." But as he took a last look at the altar stone, Daniel still automatically held out a hand to steady O'Neill.

As O'Neill limped along next to him he felt another twinge of conscience. Once again he was going to be very grateful for all the useful information Daniel had in that head of his. That information he would never let him share because he found it so damned boring. After a rather laden silence he said quietly, "Okay, tell me about the Maya. Tell me what we can expect." And this time he didn't say 'But give me the short version'.

Daniel helped him clamber over some fallen stones. "Well, they created the first comprehensive writing system in Pre-Columbian America. They had an incredibly complicated calendrical system – don't worry I'm not going to explain it to you, to be honest, I have trouble with it myself – they valued chocolate so highly that it became a form of currency. They loved saunas and ball games."

"My kind of people," O'Neill put in.

Daniel darted him a look. "They were originally believed to be a peaceful theocracy, but later evidence proves the lowland Maya city-states were actually in a constant state of warfare with each other. They sought tributes and captives from other city-states and used the captives as human sacrifices in much the same way the Aztecs did, although in far smaller numbers."

"Okay. Not my kind of people."

"They built cities containing as many as fifty thousand people, usually constructed around temple groups comprising pyramids, ball courts, temples and palaces, all linked by broad causeways. They prized jade and obsidian. They tortured their prisoners by removing their fingernails – among other methods."

O'Neill grimaced. "So, when their civilization – wound down, what happened?"

"As far as we can gather they gradually left the cities, which fell into decline, and moved out into the surrounding countryside. We don't really know why."

O'Neill looked around again. "Okay, so we’re hoping that's what's happened here. Breakdown of their society? Headed for the hills? Abandoned their city which will hopefully have a Stargate somewhere nearby which they've left unguarded?"

"How will a Stargate help us?" Daniel asked mildly. "You can't gate from one part of a planet to another. You just get a busy signal."

"Thank you, Daniel, the twinges in my leg on cold days do actually help me remember that. We could gate home and get reinforcements. Then gate back."

"Not if Onuris is blocking incoming as well as outgoing. We'd just end up over here again. And it's not like you could bring a jet through and fly it over to where Sam and Teal'c are."

"Look, I'm the one supplying the negativity on this trip, you stick with the relentless optimism, okay?"

Daniel moistened his lips. "Sorry. What was I thinking?"

There was a pause before O'Neill said, "How come no one is working in these fields anyway? Shouldn't they be – harvesting or whatever?"

"I've been wondering that myself. There was a lot of fruit on the ground in that orchard. I would have expected everything to be picked before now."

O'Neill nodded. "It's kind of quiet too, isn't it?"

"You're not going to say 'too quiet', are you?"

"Remind me again why I've never hit you?"

Daniel darted him a glance. "What about when you had the Touched virus?"

"I wasn't myself then, that doesn't count."

"Okay, what about all those 'self defense' lessons you keep giving me?"

"That isn't hitting you, Daniel, that's just teaching you to keep your guard up. Completely different thing. Believe me, if I ever hit you properly you would know all about it."

Daniel reached up and plucked a bluish-colored fruit from a tree. "You hit me and I'll tell Teal'c." He swallowed the blue fruit and then stuck out a mauve-streaked tongue. "So there."

O'Neill opened his mouth to make a counter-threat and then realized there was no counter-threat. Teal'c was a game winner. He held up an admonishing finger. "That's cheating."

"No, that's winning." Daniel tossed some more of the blue fruit into his mouth. "You should try it some time."

O'Neill was nothing other than pleased when Daniel tripped over something in the undergrowth and fell flat on his face.

He stopped smirking within seconds though when Daniel gasped, shuddered and rolled over. There was panic in his voice: "Jack…"

Remembering the snake that had slithered over Daniel's boot, O'Neill felt his heart give an unpleasant lurch. "Daniel - ?"

Daniel struggled to his feet and away from where he'd been lying so fast he practically threw himself into O'Neill's arms. "What's wrong?" O'Neill steadied him as well as he could while trying to take his own weight on one leg. Daniel looked bone-white and his heart was pounding so fast O'Neill could feel the reverberations going through him. "What - ?" That was when the wind must have changed and the smell reached him. He knew that stench all too well.

As he made to bend down and look at what Daniel had tripped over, the younger man held him back. "Don't."

O'Neill frowned at him. "Daniel, I've seen corpses before – "

"It's a child." Daniel's eyes were still too full of sorrow for him to disguise it. "A little girl."

O'Neill felt misery and rage lance through him. He'd never been able to resign himself to the death of any child, but at least most of them were buried and mourned. What kind of people left their daughter's body out in the fields to rot? He glared at Daniel as though it was his fault. "This part of their culture too? The only bury first-born sons or something?"

Daniel tugged him away, stepping over the undergrowth carefully and towing O'Neill after him. "I think I know why the fruit hasn't been harvested."

O'Neill turned to look back at the place where Daniel had tripped. "We have to bury her."

Daniel was reaching into his pockets for a wipe, and as O'Neill looked at him in surprise he wiped his fingers off carefully. "I think there may be a lot more like her. A lot more than we could ever bury."

O'Neill felt that all-too familiar sick feeling in his stomach get worse. "You mean you think the reason there's no one in the fields is because…?"

Daniel's face was bleak. "They're all dead, yes."

***

When he got stuck out on a mission he ended up reading anything sometimes. Daniel only ever had books on archaeological stuff while Carter had books on wormholes and those – string things; Teal'c was the only one who ever had anything a normal guy could read and even he never remembered to pack a Raymond Chandler. So he'd read some weird books since they started going through the 'gate. Especially on the missions where all they did was babysit Daniel while he chipped at things, or filmed things, or dug stuff up. O'Neill had already told Hammond the next time anyone found anything that needed excavating he should send another team to hold Daniel's hand. Hammond had reminded him he'd suggested that on the last two archaeological missions and O'Neill had overruled him, saying as SG-1 couldn’t go to any other planet without Daniel along for the ride they might as well go and keep an eye on him. Hammond had way too good a memory sometimes. The point was the last time they'd been stuck somewhere with nothing to do he'd had a choice between something astrophysical, some guy called Budge whose stuff Daniel was always bitching about while scribbling corrections in the margins, and a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.

A dead French philosopher had won by a nose. A short-lived victory as after a few pages of an eternal triangle in Hell's waiting room, O'Neill had tossed it and spent a far more profitable hour annoying Daniel instead. But that was when he'd read that Hell was other people. At the time he'd been skeptical; later he'd thought Sartre should have tried a few days in Netu; now he realized the guy was right, but he'd missed out one important word: Hell was other dead people.

Dead children. Dead women. Dead men. Livid corpses with the flesh gnawed off to reveal glistening shocks of bone, no eyes in their sockets; skin shriveled or bloated; colored stark white or mottled blue and green. The stink of putrefaction. Everything half-rotted by the unfeeling sunshine. He felt like putting a bandage across Daniel's eyes and leading him through it. Except he didn't want to see it either.

"I have to – " Daniel abruptly let him go and staggered over to the side of the track.

O'Neill flinched in sympathy as all the fruit Daniel had eaten was deposited an inch from his boots. He reached out and rubbed his back gently as Daniel heaved and kept on heaving long after there was nothing left in his guts. It was only that morning Daniel had been talking about how exciting it would be to find an inhabited city and O'Neill had been wishing he'd shut the hell up. Now he wished he'd been nicer about it, tried to take an interest. Daniel was probably never again going to be able to look at a Mayan artifact again without seeing bloated corpses with maggots hatching out of them.

After Daniel finally finished heaving, he said quietly, "You okay?"

"No."

He winced at the bleakness in Daniel’s voice and automatically rubbed his back again. He could see the city up ahead of them, just the way Daniel had said it would be, all temple pyramids and raised causeways, the grey stone rising out of the jungle like a myth. He peered through his field glasses but could see no one moving over there, but no corpses in sight either, and vines trailing over the causeways the same way that snake had slithered across Daniel’s boot. A ghost city. What was that Daniel had said about the 'place of the phantoms'? He wondered why when there was a city right there you moved out and lived in huts instead?

"I expect the Goa'uld told them to."

O'Neill started as Daniel read his mind apparently without difficulty then remembered that he’d been staring at the city through his binoculars, brow creased in puzzlement, and Daniel could always read him like a book. "You think so?"

Daniel wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Limiting our development is one of their primary objectives. A civilization with reservoirs, aqueducts, viaducts and steam baths is a civilization thinking along the lines of labor saving devices. Labor saving devices give you more time for things other than day-to-day survival. Time to invent weaponry. Time to – "

"Start thinking for yourself?"

Daniel darted a glance at him. "People can believe in a god without necessarily abdicating all independent thought, Jack."

"Maybe they can, but you have to admit more often than not they tend not to bother." O'Neill looked around. "So you think the last Goa'uld who was here told them to leave the city and go back into the jungle. To start all over again?"

"It’s a possibility. Most earth mythologies record periods when humans were cast down from previous achievements, their civilizations reborn or remade because they had become too proud or too wicked to continue in their original state. I’m presuming in the light of off-world evidence that this was the Goa'uld quelling rebellion and trying to keep their slaves from developing to the point where they became a threat. It makes a lot more sense than otherwise supposedly benevolent deities slaughtering their followers apparently just for the hell of it."

Talking archaeology seemed to have helped Daniel recover. O'Neill was relieved to see that unnerving greenish tinge fading from his skin. Daniel was still very pale but he didn’t look like he was going to dry heave himself inside out.

Daniel looked around at their surroundings. "We need to check all these huts. See if there are any survivors." He glanced at O'Neill’s leg. "I think you’d better wait here in the shade. I’ll do it."

"Daniel..." He started to protest but Daniel glanced at him sharply.

"I can handle it. You rest your leg."

"I know you can handle it. I’m just asking if it’s wise?"

Daniel moistened his lips. "Jack, whatever these people have could well be what Sam has too. I think we need to know what that is, don’t we?"

He grimaced. "Yes and no. Yes, it would be good to know what killed these people, yes it would be good to know if this is what Carter has too and therefore what medicine we need to get her when we get back there, but no it wouldn’t be a good idea for you catch it too. Having one teammate dying of fever isn’t exactly giving me a warm glow inside, having two of you coughing up blood definitely wouldn’t make my day."

"I’m pretty sure it’s a form of diphtheria. Something you and I have both been inoculated against."

“So, has Carter. I’ve seen her vaccination mark.”

Daniel blinked at him, clearly momentarily distracted. O'Neill sighed. "In Hathor’s little mock-up. I was the one who had to come rescue you two, remember? You weren’t exactly wrapped up warm. I saw your vaccination mark too."

Daniel continued evenly, "The difference being that you and I both spent time on Abydos and there was a variant of the diphtheria germ going around at the time of our first mission there. I’m betting you had a sore throat when you went home?"

"And I thought that was just from all that yelling at you I had to do."

"I caught it even though I was inoculated. A lot of people on Abydos had died from it in the past, but I was only ill for a few days. That's how diphtheria works, you get people who recover from mild infections who then carry it to people who have no immunity and it kills them. Our inoculations must have given us some immunity to the Abydos strain, and the Abydos strain we got in such a mild form must have given us immunity to the diphtheria strain on this world. But the people here clearly had no immunity at all, and Sam has obviously got it pretty badly as well."

O'Neill hated it when Daniel told him things he didn't want to hear which nevertheless sounded as though they were probably true. He pulled the sidearm out of his pocket and handed it over. "Just in case."

Daniel took it without a word and headed in the direction of the first hut. O'Neill opened his mouth to call him back and then shut it again. Daniel had seen dead bodies before. Lots of times. Daniel dug up dead bodies for a living if you wanted to be brutal about it. He was wounded and Daniel wasn't; that meant Daniel was the one who got to go and look at all those other corpses who'd died in their beds. That was the way things went sometimes. Daniel was a grown-up and he deserved to be treated like one. That meant listening to his opinion. It also meant letting him do horrible things that needed to be done. It wasn't possible to protect them forever. Some days it wasn't possible to protect them at all.

O'Neill closed his eyes as he heard that gunshot again. Saw the blood. By the time he opened his eyes, Daniel had disappeared into the first hut. He leaned against the nearest tree, needing the solidity of that bark at his back. He looked up and flinched from the sunlight splintering down through the canopy. And yes, he would admit it, this rainforest was beautiful; the blue sky was beautiful; even the sun overhead making his eyes water was beautiful, but everything smelt of rotting flesh. Carter was dying. Perhaps she was already dead. Teal'c was going to be executed. There were hundreds of dead people scattered all around them, possibly carrying a disease that would kill him and Daniel too. And for all he knew he and Daniel had been moving in the wrong direction for two days. There were some thing even really big trees couldn't make better.

All the time he was thinking he was aware of where Daniel was. First hut. Second hut. Third hut. Seventh hut. People thought being compassionate made you soft. But sometimes it made you harder than graphite. His compassion for Kira had made Daniel merciless to the rest of them. His compassion for the hosts who had been taken and might be taken could make Daniel merciless to the Goa'uld who would seek to enslave others. And his compassion for the people who might still be alive in the midst of all these dead bodies, was giving Daniel the strength to go into hut after hut filled with putrefying corpses –

They came out of the trees as silently as mist rolling in from the sea. One minute he was surrounded by jungle, the next there were people. Scores of them. With weapons.

"Daniel!"

Long spears with something wrapped around them, feathers trailing from them. Probably symbolizing something terribly significant but right now all he really cared about was how sharp those damned metal points looked.

"Daniel!" O'Neill cast around for something, anything, with which to defend himself and realized there wasn't even a stone he could throw. "Daniel!"

Daniel stepped out of one of the huts and even at this distance O'Neill could tell that what Daniel had found in there had been horrible. God they must know each other scarily well, because Daniel's body language had 'dead baby' written all over it. Probably lying near to a woman who looked a little like Sha're with its face rotted off. And Christ, wasn't it time fate decided to cut them some slack?

The locals were closing in now, converging on Daniel like hyenas on a wounded antelope. Daniel was still gazing around with his mouth open. He looked young and dazed, and as if he should be anywhere but here.

"Fire the gun!" O'Neill realized he must sound angry with Daniel. Screaming at someone hoarsely sort of gave that impression.

Daniel was turning a slow circle as the feather-helmeted natives surrounded him. Some of them wore circular masks, also topped with feathers, and showing bared teeth. O'Neill got a vague impression of green feathers, gold necklaces, yellow tunics, and smooth coffee-colored skin. Most of his attention was riveted on the spears they were waving, every point turned in Daniel's direction. Hostility in every straining muscle. As he gazed at them he saw a different form in the trees, a child with paler skin and fair hair. Just for a second he thought it was Charlie; a ghost come to tell him this time he really was going to die; and then he realized the child was real; a boy with unreadable blue eyes, dressed like these people but only with them, not of them. There was a whole story here O'Neill would never know. Right now he was more worried about his own story and if they had just reached the page marked 'The End'. He wrenched his gaze back to his teammate.

"Fire into the air!" Just for once, please God let Daniel do what he told him. "Daniel!"

Their eyes met and he saw that Daniel was at least keeping up on current events enough to be scared. That was something. Daniel pulled out the gun, the weapon looking awkward in his hand despite all those hours on the firing range. The damned things didn't belong in Daniel's hand, that was the trouble, and they never looked comfortable there. Daniel studied the human race; he didn't kill it.

O'Neill jerked his head round and realized there were people closing in on him as well. Daniel was the only help either of them had. "Daniel!"

Daniel pointed the gun in the air and fired.

As the natives fell back, O'Neill felt a surge of hope, which faded within seconds as the populace surged forward again, with redoubled purpose. There was even more determination on the faces of those not wearing masks now. As if their suspicions had just been confirmed. They were a few feet away from him now, a little more from Daniel. O'Neill yelled desperately, "Shoot one of them!"

He saw the shocked horror on Daniel's face but tried to find his gaze and hold it. "Damnit, Daniel, it's them or us!"

Clearly operating on automatic pilot, Daniel obediently raised the gun, leveled it, pointed it at a guy with a gold and green tunic and plumes rising from a helmet shaped like a jaguar's head. O'Neill felt the moment freeze; felt trapped in that instant like an insect in amber; he could see how long Daniel's fingers were as they were wrapped around that sidearm, see the pink raw flesh where Daniel had scraped off the skin from his knuckles as they struggled through the jungle. He could see the muscle clenching in Daniel's jaw; the collar of his jacket flapping in the breeze which was wafting the smell of death to everyone. He didn't know if he wanted Daniel to pull the trigger or not, he just knew that if he didn't they were both going to die. If Daniel didn't shoot someone, the last thing he ever heard would be his best friend yelling at him to kill someone. If he did, they might both still die, and the last thing Daniel saw would be look in the eyes of someone he'd just murdered.

O'Neill felt hands close in on him and attempted to push them away, trying to elbow off men with spears while standing on one leg. "Daniel!"

Daniel abruptly held up the gun and took a step back. "I can't. Jack, I can't. They're not Goa'uld. They're not Jaffa. I just – " As they closed in on Daniel, jabbing at him with their spears, their eyes met again and Daniel said desperately, "I'm sorry."

O'Neill closed his eyes. They were all dead then. Not just him and Daniel but Carter and Teal'c as well. All because Daniel wasn't a soldier, and Daniel would know that as well as him. There was only one thing left for him to do now. He didn't believe in heaven or in hell any more, but he could still believe in absolution. From somewhere he managed to drag up the words they both needed him to say. "You did the right thing, Daniel."

The words were barely spoken before pain exploded into the side of his head; white light blazed like a supernova then faded to a spiraling black hole which sucked him into its center.

***

Teal'c sat with his back against the wall of their cell with Major Carter in his arms. She appeared to be asleep again, but he could feel the fever overheating her body while her breathing was harsh and labored. The medicine upon which he had pinned so much hope had failed both of them. Her pulse was weak; she was restless, and seemed even more confused than before about where she was and who was with her. She was slipping through his fingers even as he tightened his protective grip upon her. No Jaffa might be able to tear her from him without a fight, but death was still taking her moment by moment; a thief who did not even trouble to hide the fact that he was stealing.

He had been raised to conceal his emotions. His mother had asked that he should grow up to be worthy of the name his father had given him; to be a strong warrior; a man of great courage and integrity, as his father had been before him. His mother had loved her son unconditionally, but she had expected much of him as well. It fell upon the son to avenge the father and he had been taught that from his earliest years. It had been required of him that he should be First Prime not only because to be less would have been to fall short of the standard his father had set him, but because only as First Prime of Apophis would he have any hope of contributing to the downfall of Cronos. Even within a system he despised he had been ambitious, and for all his suspicions, he had still been full of pride on the day that liquid gold had been seared into his skin. He had killed many men, not all of them deserving, to attain the position of First Prime, fighting misgivings as he did so which became more pressing with each injustice witnessed. The reward for keeping his doubts to himself had been many - a beautiful wife, a home that befitted his rank, and the honor due to him as the first servant of a god. But he had still been a slave to a parasite.

The birth of his son had softened him in ways that he knew might prove fatal, but how could he not care more for the death of another man's child when he knew what losing his own would do to him? More doubts had followed the birth of Ry'ac as crows followed farmers throwing seed into the sillions. Bra'tac worked from within the system he despised to try to temper the fire of Goa'uld injustice, but was it enough? Small acts of mercy constantly outweighed by other acts of savagery to which he was not just a witness but also a participant. If Teal'c left, another worse than himself would take his place, but while he served Apophis it could not be denied that Apophis was very well served. Was he still putting his own ambitions before what he knew was right? Was he letting his love for his wife and child affect his judgment; was his love for Drey'ac and Ry'ac making him a party to tyranny he would otherwise find another means to oppose? What would his father truly have wanted of him? That Teal'c served one monster in the hope of destroying the other monster who had murdered him or that he brought about the destruction of all tyrants of Cronos and Apophis' kind?

He had been riddled with doubts for so long, fighting to hold them at bay for a time while they grew stronger as his certainties grew weaker. He had missed that certainty, attempting to cling to it like a drowning man trying not to go under for the last time. If there was a better way Bra'tac would have found it, and Cronos had murdered Teal'c's father. Apophis would destroy Cronos. It was Teal'c's duty to make the death of Cronos his first priority whatever sacrifices it might cost.

But if his desire to revenge his father's death had been a sun blazing in his heart, O'Neill had been a one-man eclipse. In that moment when the man had asked for his help, Teal'c had realized there were more doubts in his breast than there were stars in the night sky, and that his hatred for the 'god' he served, who had made him deny his own humanity so many times, burned no less brightly than his hatred for the Goa'uld who had murdered his father.

He had lost and gained everything in that instant. Lost the favor of Apophis and gained the belief of O'Neill. Lost the respect and affection of his fellow Jaffa but gained the respect and affection of the Tau'ri who were now his teammates. He had lost one cause and found another. Lost one Teal'c and found another. But he had also lost his wife and child, albeit temporarily. He had put his new cause before them as he had put his old cause before them in the past. His mother had raised him to put duty over love and a part of him was grateful for it. Life was simpler when you knew what your priorities should be, feelings blurred certainties. But although he cared more for his teammates than he ever should have allowed himself to feel, and although he could have cared for General Hammond no more if he had been the father Cronos had stolen from him, living amongst the Tau'ri had many disadvantages.

Sometimes, for instance, it was very difficult to remember that emotions were a sign of weakness, something an enemy could use against him. Apophis had not completely grasped the human mentality yet but once he did, they would all suffer for it. Had Apophis realized on Netu how deep the friendships ran in SG-1, he would have dispensed with the memory device and tortured Teal'c's teammates by different means. The end result might have been very different. Teal'c respected O'Neill deeply but he did not entirely trust his ability to appear indifferent in the face of cruelty to either Major Carter or Daniel Jackson. Nor, if he was honest, did Teal'c trust his own ability to do so. He liked to think that he could do what was required of him in any given situation for the greater good. That he would remember all the evil the Goa'uld were capable of and strive to destroy them first, but if he was honest, that had not been his first priority on Netu. The Tok'ra, Aldwin, had remembered the importance of their mission; had kept in mind that destroying Sokar was more important than saving one's friends. Teal'c had not. Although he had told himself, he had not endangered their mission, only the lives of himself and one Tok'ra, he was afraid that he would have spared even Sokar to save his companions.

A part of himself was still the son his mother had raised, but there were other parts that were perhaps too much the father of Ry'ac, the friend of the Tau'ri, the warrior who could not bear to lose his teammates even if their sacrifice was necessary. It was a problem for all of them. He and O'Neill had never discussed it but he knew they were both growing wary of their own ability to do the right thing. They had lost too many loved ones and the loss was taking its toll. Three times now, O'Neill had thought Daniel Jackson was definitely dead and then, after a period of mourning, had him miraculously restored to him. There was nothing O'Neill did not know about the pain of such a loss. Was it likely he would court it if it were avoidable? Even if it should not necessarily be avoided? Teal'c still could not decide if the decision he had made in the tel'tak had been the right one or the wrong one. Not because of what he had done, but because of the way he had felt at the time. He had done nothing that he was aware of to endanger the Tok'ra mission to destroy Sokar in rescuing his companions. But he very much feared that even if there had been a chance his actions might have jeopardized more than his own life and that of Aldwin, Teal'c would still have done as he had.

As the door opened, Teal'c jerked his head up in surprise. He saw the lion guards briefly looming over another figure like pillars and then the smaller man in tattered robes came into the room. Teal'c registered the newcomer with relief. "Harun."

The man waited until the door closed behind him and then hurried across. "I have brought water. How – is she?"

Teal'c found it surprisingly difficult to say the words aloud. "She is dying."

"The medicine - ?"

"It did not help her."

Harun crouched down beside them. He stretched out a hand to touch the unconscious woman and then drew it back. "I have brought you some water. And here – " He pulled a cloth-wrapped object from inside his robe and handed it to Teal'c. "There is bread." His blue eyes held accusation as he looked at the Jaffa. "You said that your medicine would make her well again."

Teal'c met his gaze levelly. "It has not."

"Then nothing can save her. The prophecy is true. Compassion died and was mourned by all."

Teal'c shook his head. "Nothing must happen simply because it is written."

"But the prophecy foretold the coming of the Chosen One. The prophet spoke true."

Impatiently Teal'c drew an arrow in the dirt floor. "Do you think time travels like this? It does not. Sometimes it travels like this." He drew a circle in the dust. "I have been to the past and returned to the future. The prophet who foretold the coming of Daniel Jackson to this planet doubtless traveled from your future to your past. He foretold the past and not the future, and even then he may not have said what was true, only what was necessary."

"Necessary?" Harun frowned in confusion. "I do not understand."

"For what he desired to take place. Would you have believed an avatar of your Chosen One could die of the same illness as afflicts your children had it not been written that contact with your people brought about her death?"

Harun's eyes widened. "You mean the prophet may have lied?"

"I mean your prophet wanted the people of this world to throw off the shackles of the Goa'uld. If he knew the future he would know what needed to be written to bring about the defeat of Onuris."

Harun looked horrified. "This is terrible."

"Why?" Teal'c returned. "The Goa'uld have their lies. Your prophet had his. He wrote what needed to be written, not necessarily what was true. Do you think the writing on the walls of the Temple of Onuris is true?"

"Onuris is a false god, I know the words of his followers to be lies." Harun's gaze strayed uneasily to Major Carter. Once again he stretched out a hand as if to touch her and then withdrew it again.

"Daniel Jackson is also a false god," Teal'c said it gently. "Unlike the Goa'uld he does not claim to be what he is not. But the words of his followers are still lies." He met Harun's gaze. "Powerful lies with the power to effect great changes."

"Good comes from truth!" Harun protested.

Teal'c continued to look at him unblinkingly. "Not necessarily."

Harun rose to his feet and put his hands to his ears. "I will not listen to this. You bring only confusion where once I had certainty. A man is nothing without belief."

"A man is nothing without doubt," Teal'c countered. "When I believed Apophis to be a god, when I believed my first duty was to avenge my father's death, I had no doubts, and I was wrong. How can we learn if we never question?"

"How can we live without conviction?"

"What is conviction except what remains after everything else has been rejected? You know that the Goa'uld are false gods because you have chosen to reject their lies."

"I know the Goa'uld are false gods because the Chosen One is the true god!"

Teal'c shook his head. "You know Daniel Jackson is not a god, Harun. You know Major Carter and myself are not avatars. But you believe Onuris is evil and you wish your people to be rid of him so you have chosen to believe in us instead."

"If you are not gods, what should I believe in then?" Harun retorted.

"Yourself."

Harun backed up towards the door. "If the Chosen One is not a god, he will not arrive in time."

"Daniel Jackson may not be a god but he is both intelligent and determined, and Colonel O'Neill may not be an avatar of the Chosen One but he will do everything within his power to ensure that Major Carter and myself survive. They may yet arrive in time."

"Then you do believe in them?"

"They are my friends," Teal'c stroked a hand automatically through Major Carter's hair as he said the words. "Who better to believe in?"

Harun frowned in confusion. "You do not believe in the power of prophecy and yet you echo its words."

Teal'c met his gaze unflinchingly. "I do believe in the power of prophecy. All words have power. Even when they are not true."

"I will hear no more of this." Harun banged on the door sharply. "I am done with the false avatars of the false god. Let me out."

As the door closed behind him, Major Carter stirred in Teal'c's arms. Her voice was a harsh rasp: "Teal'c…?"

"I am here, Major Carter."

She gazed up at him blearily. "Hard to…breathe…" Even managing those words seemed to cost her a great effort.

He felt despair tighten its grip on his heart but he stroked his fingers through her hair as gently as if she was Ry'ac. "Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson will return soon."

"Promise…you won't…"

It was so difficult for her to speak that he hurried to reassure her. "I will not turn you into a Goa'uld, Major Carter."

"Rather…die…"

"I know. I have given you my word and I will keep it." He put his fingers to her neck and felt how swollen her throat was. Her airway was clearly getting more constricted with each passing hour and the penicillin had either come too late or was not effective against her illness. He raised her up a little, hoping that might help her breathing but as she gulped for air he saw panic flicker in her blue eyes.

"So…hard to…breathe…"

He rubbed her back automatically, hoping it might help but in his heart he knew there was nothing that he could do except sit and watch her struggle for each breathe until the swelling closed her throat completely.

"I gave you my word," he said again, not just because she needed to hear that reassurance again, but because he needed to remind himself that this time he had no choice but to sit here and watch a friend die.

***

Daniel was reading the story of the Deathchild. It was painted on the walls of the Mayan version of hell into which he and Jack had been cast; laid out clearly enough in pictures that even someone who wasn't an archaeologist could probably understand it. The Deathchild was a boy banished from his own realm by the priests of the Otherland. Found wandering on the Sacred Mountain. Given shelter, given succor. Brought death.

The white skin and plumed markings on the foreheads of the cruel priests left Daniel in no doubt these were same priests who had tortured him. They had banished the boy because it was written that he would bring about their destruction. They had killed his father before his eyes, wrenched him from his mother's protective embrace, and sent him away to carry a terrible plague to the tribe which had adopted him.

Daniel had caught just a glimpse of a fair-haired boy half-hidden in the jungle when the warriors were closing in on him. He was evidently the Deathchild. The one who had carried diphtheria to the people on this side of the planet. The priests must have used the rings to send him to the caves. He had found his way down to the jungle and been taken in by the tribe. Probably immune himself but still capable of passing on the illness he had given it to the people who had rescued him from the jungle. They had evidently had no resistance to that strain of diphtheria and the results had been devastating.

All of which made perfect sense. What made no sense at all was the fact the child Daniel had glimpsed in the jungle had appeared to be about ten, whereas these paintings were several hundred years old.

Following the story of the Deathchild to its conclusion, there were paintings showing him piloting something that looked remarkably like a death glider in a war against the people who had banished him. But his story had no end and no real beginning. He had been banished because it was written that he would bring disaster upon his people; in banishing him they had probably sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Another self-fulfilling prophecy swallowing its own half-truths. And in the meantime, a child had been torn away from his own family, and hundreds of people with no immunity to diphtheria had been exposed to it.

Daniel crossed back over to where Jack was lying to listen to the rhythmic thumping of the man's heart again. He kept checking it and it kept beating. He just wished Jack would wake up. He could wake up and yell at Daniel for not having pulled the trigger if he wanted to. Just as long as he woke up.

In the meantime, he could see why they called this place the Freezing House. His breath was a white vapor, while the constant wailing of the icy wind that blew across the chamber was making his skin crawl. Daniel rubbed his arms again, trying to keep warm. He missed his jacket and vest. The sharp drop in temperature suggested night had fallen outside, but given how far underground they seemed to be, it was hard to tell. And anyway, according to Mayan mythology, this place was always bitterly cold. He wondered where the light was coming from. Some leftover Goa'uld technology, he presumed. At least it had enabled him to examine the murals on the walls, although he was still trying to make sense of the other stories.

Given the way these people's mythology had developed and the place he and Jack had been allocated in it, he supposed he should be grateful they hadn't been offered up to the gods in the usual way. That was twice now he'd narrowly escaped being sacrificed to an absent Goa'uld.

He glanced down at Jack again. Was the man stirring or was that just wishful thinking on his part? Time had trickled through his fingers like sand through an hourglass while Jack was lying there unconscious. He knew there were things he should be doing but he felt paralyzed until he knew if Jack was okay, and he wouldn't know that until the man woke up and talked to him.

He had tried to reason with the people who had dragged them along the causeway into the city, up into the main temple and then down into this icy chamber, pleading with them on Jack's behalf as well as his own. But they had ignored his words and hauled Jack down the stairs with his feet trailing behind him, down staircase after staircase until they reached a chamber whose walls were covered in brightly colored murals Daniel barely glimpsed before a trapdoor yawned open at their feet. He'd still been having a bad flashback to Netu as once again he and Jack were cast down into a Goa'uld version of hell.

Once they'd been thrown into this chamber and trapdoor above slammed closed and bolted, Daniel had done the best he could to make Jack comfortable, relieved to find that his limpness as he was dropped through the hole in the floor seemed to have prevented the older man from doing more than collecting a few bruises. Daniel had pulled off his vest and put it under Jack's bleeding head, listened carefully to his breathing, then put his head on his chest to check for a heartbeat and as an extra precaution – not that recent events were making him paranoid – had felt for a pulse at the man's neck. All confirmed that Jack O'Neill was alive but was probably going to wake up with one hell of a headache. Trying to remember everything he'd heard about head trauma and realizing he'd forgotten all of it, Daniel had wriggled out of his jacket and laid that over the unconscious man on the grounds that keeping him warm was bound to be a good idea. Then he had waited for Jack to wake up. And waited. And waited. In between he had tried to decipher the glyphs in the hope that they might shed some light on these people's history. Not to mention the trials he and Jack might have to face in this Goa'uld created version of yet another human hell.

He had begun with the far wall, trying to work out the timeline for when these people had been kidnapped by the Goa'uld. Some of the earlier stories were ones he recognized, but others – like their version of the Book of Popol Vuh – were so different as to be very confusing. Nor was he an expert on the complicated Mayan language or the even more complicated Mayan calendar, so wrestling with the Long Count while trying to work out if Smoking Skull was also Fire-headed Sun God or if they were two distinct underlords, had taken up a lot of his time. Going back to check that Jack was still breathing every five minutes probably hadn't helped his research much either but even allowing for the fact he was a little distracted there had been a lot of contradictions in the stories told.

It had taken him hours to identify the various glyphs being used. His Mayan had been distinctly rusty before this trip and it was only the fact he'd been taught the language so thoroughly by his grandfather when he was a child that he wasn't even further out of his depth. But once he'd managed to successfully identify the glyphs used to represent K'awiil, the snake-footed patron of kings, Chaak and Yoaat, the rain and lightning gods, K'inich, the sun god, and the local glyphs for fire, water, sky, jaguar, snake, turtle and so on, he'd found the murals and their explanatory glyphs much easier to translate. There was still the problem to cope with of the way the language had evolved over what was obviously a few thousand years; the murals becoming increasingly more colorful and complicated then beginning to degenerate again, the knack of mixing certain colors appearing to have been lost as the vivid blues and golds were replaced by earth tones of russet and cream.

There also appeared to be several stories being told at once, some overlapping others as later artists encroached upon the territory of previous ones. The Deathchild story seemed to have no connection with any of the others, but many murals depicted the adventures of Vukub-Came and Hun-Came, and these were the most brilliant and highly-colored of all. The gods of the Underworld had arrived in a 'pillar of light', which Daniel interpreted as the ring system. They had brought with them many followers who harbored 'ch'ok Chan' in their bellies to give them the strength of 'many Hix'. Daniel had banged his head against the wall for a while trying to make sense of that one, but once he had remembered that 'Hix' was jaguar, 'Chan' could mean 'snake' as well as 'sky' and that 'ch'ok' meant 'unripe' as well as 'noble' the glyphs made a lot more sense. And having translated the story of the coming of the Goa'uld, he found he now knew several words which he could recognize in this variant of Mayan at a glance, greatly assisting in the speed of his translation.

He still wasn't sure why the Goa'uld had left because there was less emphasis on them going than the certainty of their return. This was stressed over and over again on the older murals. Although common to many mythologies, in this instance he wondered if it had more significance than that here. The Goa'uld trying to ensure that there would still be a place for them in these people's mythology when they came back.

He had been a little…disconcerted by the last wall of murals. They might be useful in helping them through Xibalba, but they were also something he would really rather Jack didn't get to see. Being an anthropologist, they didn't bother him, but he had a feeling Jack wasn't going to take the implications of those pictures well.

Jack made an inarticulate mumbling noise and Daniel leaned over him, trying to keep a rein on his anxiety and going by the sound of his voice, failing miserably. "Jack?"

"Did the right thing, Daniel…Not your fault…Had to die sooner or later…"

"Jack!"

Oh that was clever, yelp at him hysterically, that would really show the guy everything was okay and he could wake up in his own time.

Jack jerked his head up like a soldier sleeping on watch snapping to attention. "What?"

Daniel winced at him apologetically. "Sorry."

The man put a hand to his forehead. "Ow." He peered at his palm, squinting at it in the dim lighting but he sounded far more compos mentis than Daniel had dared hope. "Situation?"

"They think we're gods."

"So no change for you. Promotion for me." Jack glared at the blood on his hand and wiped it off on the jacket lying across his chest. Then he looked down at it before glancing across at Daniel. "Damnit, Daniel, do you want to catch pneumonia?" He tossed Daniel the jacket irritably.

Daniel gave him a reproachful look as he pulled the jacket on. "You're welcome."

"If they think we're gods why are we freezing our butts off in a stinking dungeon?"

"It's not a dungeon, it's Xuxulim-ha, the Freezing House, and it has an exit." Daniel waved a hand at the doorway at the end of the room. "They think we're what in their version of Mayan mythology appear to be bad gods."

"Those underworld guys?"

"No. Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu. Hero gods in our culture but apparently not in theirs. In this world the gods of the underworld are the good guys. We're corrupt and depraved."

"Nah, that's just a rumor put around by SG-6."

Daniel wondered why he'd been so eager for Jack to wake up. He wasn't sure how the guy managed to do this. When they were both conscious he knew damned well Jack wasn't the miracle worker he'd used to think, but somehow as soon as he was out of earshot or just out for the count, Daniel started kidding himself how much better everything would be if only Jack was around. "I told you earlier that the Goa'uld here were Hun-Came and Vukub-Came."

"I know you did. And it didn’t mean diddly to me then either." Jack put a hand up to the back of his neck and groaned as he evidently felt painful little clicks traveling all the way down his spine. "Christ, is there any bit of me that isn't bruised?"

"Jack…!"

"What?" the man retorted sitting up straighter. "I'm still waiting for you to tell me something that makes some kind of sense. Last thing I remember those guys were going to kill us. Why didn't they?"

"Well they sort of have. They've cast us into the Underworld anyway. According to their mythology Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were captured by the gods of Xibalba so I presume they feel they've done their part delivering us to them."

"Right." Jack shifted his bad leg to a more comfortable position, then tossed Daniel's vest to him. "Well I never thought I'd say this but it sounds like you need to talk to me about mythology." As Daniel gaped at him in surprise, Jack waved a hand, saying encouragingly, "So these good guys – us – wandered into the Underworld and…?"

Daniel grabbed some of the air back which Jack's request had whooshed out of his lungs. "Actually, they were invited. They were playing a ballgame and the rulers of Xibalba sent them an invitation to come and play ball with them. So they went."

Jack glanced around at the walls but Daniel was relieved to see that he didn't appear to have registered the content of the murals yet. He was rather hoping he might be able to steer the man past them. "So," Jack sat up straighter. "These guys traveled to the underworld. Then what did they do?"

"Um – well – they were confused, and humiliated, then they were set an impossible task which they failed to complete, then they were killed."

"And?" Jack prompted impatiently.

"Well, Hunhun-Apu managed to father twin sons after he was dead on an underworld princess called Xquiq. The children were called Hun-Apu and Xbalanque. They grew up to be great heroes who avenged their father and uncle's murder. Oh yes and the souls of Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were translated into the skies and according to legend became the sun and the moon. So they did achieve a kind of immortality."

"Am I missing something or did the guys we're supposed to be get lured into the underworld, get killed, then basically stay dead?"

"Well…I suppose, more or less, yes."

"That sucks." Jack got to his feet and Daniel scrambled up next to him, putting out a hand to steady him. By the volume of swearing, he gathered that Jack's leg was aching and his head was pounding. Steering him past those pictures definitely seemed to be a good idea.

Daniel said quickly, "There's no reason for us to stay here. I think we try to get through the various punishment houses and see if we can find a way out. The lighting in here suggests we're getting a lot closer to Goa'uld technology so – "

Too late. Jack had seen the mural on the nearest wall. Daniel winced in anticipation but Jack seemed hypnotized. He limped over towards it as though pulled by an invisible string. "Are those guys doing what I think they're doing?"

Daniel scratched his jaw. "Probably."

"Wow." Jack appeared to be impressed rather than repelled. In fact he seemed to be downright fascinated. "You'd have to be double jointed."

Daniel hoped Jack didn't get the obvious here. There was no reason why he should, after all. He couldn't read the writing and the significance of most of the symbolism was going to be completely lost on him so he wouldn't understand the –

"This is us, isn't it?"

Daniel stared at him in disbelief. Jack had to get smart now? "What – makes you say that?"

"Well I'd say these two could definitely be called corrupt and depraved, not to mention…" Jack put his head on one side. "Yep – pretty damned athletic. So this is us offending the gods and probably scaring the horses, right?"

"It's Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu," Daniel told him primly. "It's not actually 'us'."

"Except they're not locals, are they?" Jack traced a finger across the mural. "Here's all the ordinary people looking like the ones who grabbed us, and here's the Goa'uld, looking like they're from a different planet, not to mention very disapproving, and here's us, looking like – us, only being much more…flexible."

Daniel looked around for a straw to clutch at. "In the pictures on Earth, Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu are definitely Mayan."

Jack gave him a withering look. "We're not on earth. And these people definitely aren't Mayan."

"Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were probably rival Goa'uld in this culture. That would be why they don't look like locals."

Jack grabbed Daniel's arm and towed him over to the mural, making him look at it. Jack pointed a finger at one of the figures. "This is Hunhun-Apu, right?"

"It seems to be, yes."

"And so rubber boy here is Vukub-whatever, right?"

"Yes."

Jack's finger stabbed at the head of the younger god accusingly. "The kid has blue eyes, Daniel."

"In Mayan mythology Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were brothers," Daniel said determinedly.

"Well that sure as hell doesn't look like a fraternal hug to me. I think we're dealing with another screw up in the space time conthingummy."

"This isn't us ," Daniel insisted, voice rising a little.

Jack looked at him levelly. "Why not? Whoever went back in time and told those guys in the past all the guff that ended up on that tablet must have talked about this part of the proceedings as well."

Daniel gave him a look of exasperation. "If you and me have ever done this it seems to have slipped my mind."

"Well you're not the Chosen One either and I'm sure as hell not an angel, but I don't remember you bitching about that." Jack limped on along the mural. "Okay, there's you and me being corrupt and depraved…still being corrupt and depraved…being seriously corrupt and depraved…boy but I have a lively imagination and you're just so…obliging…Getting the invitation to go and play ball with the bad guys…accepting the invitation…taking a minute to be corrupt and depraved again…you've got to admire our energy…going down into the underworld…getting a whole load of…Why is this bit different?"

Keeping a steadying hand on Jack's elbow, Daniel followed the man's gaze to the last pictures on the wall. The dividing panels of glyphs were absent here as he'd already realized but he was more impressed than he was willing to let on that Jack had noticed. Sometimes he swore Jack was a lot smarter than he wanted anyone to know. "I'm hoping it's because it isn't necessarily true."

Jack scanned the pictures. "Are Carter and Teal'c on here?"

"I don't think so."

"You don't 'think' so?" Jack gave him a look of exasperation then glanced at his watch. "You've had hours. What were you doing while I was unconscious?"

"Jack, I had four walls of ancient Mayan text to translate. It's important that we know about timelines. When and who the people were taken through the 'gate to this planet. I was trying to work out if the Maya who were brought here were from before or after the ascendancy of Teotihuacan."

Limping along the mural, Jack said irritably, "Remind me to buy you a sense of proportion for Christmas. And why didn't you wake me up anyway?"

Daniel opened his mouth to make a retort, remembered that Jack's leg was hurting, his head was probably aching, and their current situation was all Daniel's fault, and closed it again. "I tried to wake you," he sighed it resignedly. "But you were too deeply unconscious." He didn't add how frightening that was. Jack knew how frightening that was. Jack had watched over him enough times when he was out for the count so there was no need for any explanation of what it did to you to have to wait around to find out if a friend was ever going to wake up again, or be himself if and when he did.

Jack grimaced in sympathy, already darting him a look to see whether or not he'd hurt his feelings. Daniel heroically resisted the urge to look wounded, and took the man's arm to help steady him. "Jack, if Sam has diphtheria…"

"I know." Jack's gaze was raking the murals. "Oh great, here we're dead. And there's no sign of Carter or Teal'c."

Daniel followed his gaze to the picture of the two figures lying on the floor with their head and limbs neatly severed from their torsos. They looked very small and surprised, with their wide open eyes and those pools of blood making a laterine puddle around their headless necks. He'd spent a long time looking at that picture and trying to work out whether or not it was bound to be 'true'. "Well, as everything else on this mural is wrong let's hope that is too." He tightened his grip on Jack's arm. "We have to go."

Jack nodded wearily. "I know." He cast a last glance at the pictures, put his head over to one side again and then shook it in disbelief. "Do the people who drew this have any idea what kind of a strain that position would put on the knees?"

Daniel began to urge him towards the doorway. "Jack, if we're talking realism, my spine would have snapped long before your knees gave out. Now, we need to look out for booby-traps."

Jack was still gazing at the murals in fascination as Daniel steered him past them. "What?"

"Well this mural doesn't tell us how we end up like…that, so we need to focus on the trials faced by Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu." It was a relief to get Jack away from the pictures and into the corridor. The passageway was bathed in a greenish light which was possibly due to phosphorescence but which Daniel suspected had been chosen by the departed Goa'uld for the same reason fairground owners used green light-bulbs in Haunted Houses: it looked creepy. As he helped Jack limp in what he hoped was the right direction, Daniel told him about the Punishment Houses of the mythological Xibalba.

Jack was ticking them off on his fingers as they passed along a corridor. "Gloom. Knives. Jaguars. Fire. Bats. Right?"

Daniel nodded. "Although according to the Book of Popol Vuh, Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu had to follow a much more difficult path then we did before they reached Xibalba."

"Well getting here wasn't exactly a rest-cure for us either."

"We passed down the steep steps – you were unconscious so you'll have to take my word for it – but there wasn't a river gushing with blood and there weren't four roads. But that doesn't mean we won't reach the council room. If you see anywhere with seated figures in it…"

O'Neill sighed inwardly and let it wash over him. Daniel had already said it, after all, maybe the names were the same but the events might be completely different. They might get their asses burned on a red hot stone or they might get zatted by some Goa'uld booby-trap. A legend which had moved so far away from the truth it thought Daniel could give the kind of oral satisfaction that wouldn't have disgraced a five hundred dollar hooker while doing a handstand, was hardly the best guide in the world as to what might lie around the next bend. Not that Daniel didn't constantly surprise him with all the stuff he knew, but if he knew how to do that , O'Neill would whistle Dixie naked in the 'gateroom while standing on one leg.

"Will you stop thinking about those damned pictures?"

It was the kind of exasperated hiss he'd only previously got from Sara. O'Neill jumped guiltily. "I wasn't," he lied defensively.

Daniel gave him a withering look. Sometimes Daniel was much too much like a difficult child and a nagging wife rolled into one.

"Well only in that they're not much use for telling us what dangers we might have to face given their…questionable accuracy." He said it as primly as Daniel could have managed it. Hey, hanging around with the boy ought to have some benefits. Darting him a sideways glance, he was pleased to see Daniel looked both mollified and apologetic.

"Well, that's true. But I'm presuming there will be some resemblance to the original trials faced by either Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu or Hun-Apu and Xbalanque…"

O'Neill groaned as he got whammied by more of those damned unpronounceable names. He decided to tune Daniel out again and do some thinking of his own. Daniel might understand the mythology but O'Neill understood weaponry, he also understood the way an enemy didn’t tend to change his MO too often. This temple place they were under seemed to have been built on top of natural catacombs and then the Goa'uld had presumably fixed the place to resemble Shiwhatsit, but there would have been limits to how well they could rig it. Most of the Goa'uld weaponry they'd come across so far dealt with nerve pain: zaknikatels, shock grenades, those taks the Tok'ra had, that ring the Canon had worn which had replicated lightning, they'd all seemed to have pretty much the same energy source.

"Did you find any mention of those other two guys on any of the pictures you saw?" As Daniel blinked at him in confusion, O'Neill sighed in exasperation. "Hun-thingy and Shibble-ankway? The ones who got away?"

Daniel shook his head. "No. Nothing about Xquiq or the tree where Hunhun-Apu's head was supposed to hang. They'd incorporated some of the trials faced by Hun-Apu and Xbalanque into the ones faced by Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu but – "

"Daniel!" O'Neill grimaced as Daniel physically jumped. He hadn’t meant it to come out quite that sharply. "Yes or no would do."

Daniel moistened his lips. "No."

"So the Goa'uld have rewritten these people's history a lot?"

"Yes."

"In that case, screw looking around for jaguars and bats and let's start worrying about naqadah-based stuff that will kill us."

O'Neill was starting to see a pattern now. It wasn't a pattern he liked – he and Daniel were being herded like cattle into a corral – but at least it made sense. Each chamber was linked by a length of corridor with no exits except for the one at each end. Each chamber had a doorway on one side and another doorway at the other. There was one way into each chamber and one way out of it. They could go forward or they could retrace their steps. Sideways was not an option.

He wasn't sure how much reading of glyphs and peering at pictures he should allow Daniel to do. Forewarned was forearmed and all that but on the other hand time was definitely a factor and from what he remembered about diphtheria, they had nothing in their medical kit that was going to cure it so even if Teal'c managed to talk Harun into stealing back their equipment, it wasn't going to help. The only thing that was going to help was getting Carter back through the Stargate and into the infirmary, soon.

He'd come across diphtheria in South America and knew more or less how it worked. As it had been explained to him by a harassed field doctor in El Salvador, once you'd inhaled the diphtheria germs, you got a hole in the inside of your throat, blood leaked out, germs leaked in, you felt like shit and you got a toxin in your bloodstream that would cause multiple organ failure if you didn't get the anti-toxin pretty damned quick. But before that happened your throat would probably swell up and close over, blocking your airway and causing you to suffocate. Despite immunization programs, it still killed a lot of kids every year in Third World – damn, his age was showing – Developing countries.

He'd been told the worst strain could set up shop an hour after exposure, and even the milder varieties generally showed up within three hours. There had been other factors like whether or not a person was iron deficient which the guy had insisted on telling him about at some length but he couldn't remember any way of curing the damned thing without access to the anti-toxin. Antibiotics killed the germs in the throat but they didn't stop the ones in the bloodstream from circulating, and they were the ones that were going to be working on Carter's organs round about now.

So, they needed to get through this Mayan version of hell at double speed, which meant no time for Daniel to read all the pretty pictures on the walls. On the other hand, they also needed to get through this Mayan version of hell without having all their limbs cut off, which meant they needed to have some idea what was coming up in each chamber. Finding a balance between the two was involving a lot of patience on both their parts. Daniel was having to put up with being told to find out everything they needed to know to get through the next obstacle one minute and then being told they needed to pick up the pace now, the next. And O'Neill was having to wrap up his inconsistencies in at least a modicum of tact so Daniel wouldn't completely lose it with him. They'd made their way through two chambers without any problem so far but he doubted it would continue to be this easy, and the way Daniel was getting jumpier than a cat on a hot griddle suggested he was equally afraid there was going to be something nasty round the next bend.

O'Neill looked at his watch. "Time's up."

"Jack, I –" Daniel looked at him with that now familiar mixture of exasperation and patience.

"I know." O'Neill said it with emphasis. "I'm not blind, Daniel. I can see you have an entire wall of pictowhatsits which I've let you look at for two and half minutes. But now we know what Carter has we have a timescale, and basically if we don't get there in the next couple of hours, she's dead."

"If I screw up on this, we're dead. Which means Sam and Teal'c are dead too."

"I know. It sucks. No one should have to work under that kind of pressure." O'Neill took Daniel's arm and towed him firmly away from the wall. "But that's still the way it is."

Daniel put a hand up to his head. "Okay, I think what's up ahead should be the main chamber. The trouble is they keep crossing between the trials faced by Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu and Hun-Apu and Xbalanque, and their version of events is unlike any other I've ever come across. I'm presuming the place we just went through was Zotziha…"

"The room with all the bat crap in it, you mean?" O'Neill looked down at his boots in disgust. He was going to have to toss them when he got back because no way in hell was he wearing footwear encrusted with bat guano again.

"The House of the Bats, yes. In which, according to the Earth Book of Popol Vuh, Hun-Apu had his head cut off by Camzotz, the Ruler of the Bats."

"How come that didn't slow him up then?"

"Um – a passing tortoise brushed against Hun-Apu's severed head and was turned into a head instead, leaving Hun-Apu no worse off than before."

"You have got to wonder what kind of drugs those guys were taking who came up with this stuff."

"Jack, the point is that we didn't encounter any problems there. I was expecting some kind of booby-trap. If the Goa'uld who ran this place haven't adhered even slightly to the existing mythology then I have no idea what we could be up against."

"Well, let's just do the best we can." O'Neill wondered if his leg was ever going to stop hurting. It was only a burn, after all, should it be throbbing like this? If he could just sit down for five minutes it might stop aching so much but this wasn't a place where you came across a lot of chairs. Bat shit on the floor and dirty pictures on the walls, yes; chairs, no.

As he stepped through the doorway of the next chamber he couldn't stop a 'Wow…' breaking out because this place was big . Five times the size of the 'gateroom, the middle section of the floor decorated with different colored flagstones in an intricate pattern, and every inch of wall space covered in pictures and squiggles. Daniel emitted a strangled little moan beside him that sounded positively pre-orgasmic and O'Neill shot him a quick look. "Danny…"

"I know." Daniel automatically took some of O'Neill's weight as he helped him limp into the chamber. "I know I can't, but oh God, Jack –"

"You really want to. I know. Another time, maybe."

"This is a once in a lifetime deal and you know it." Daniel didn't sound reproachful, just resigned. He gave himself a shake and added in a lower voice. "Those pillars in the middle of the room look as if they might have Egyptian glyphs as well as Mayan ones. I can't really see from here."

"Goa'uld technology?" O'Neill looked around the cavernous chamber and nodded. "Yeah, this feels like a good place to off your enemies." It also felt – Goa'uldy. There was that low level of hum of an energy source, and the lighting was brighter. Apart from the pillars holding up the ceiling and something in the middle that looked vaguely human-shaped the cavern seemed to be empty. Except for a large sarcophagus-shaped object by the right wall. Wishing for an MP-5, O'Neill made a beeline for it.

It was instinctive to avoid the colored floor tiles and stick to the plain stone ones. A bit like not stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk: you might know it wouldn't really break your mother's back, but you skipped over them all the same. That rule also applied to garish floor tiles when there was safe grey limestone to walk on.

As he drew closer, O'Neill realized it wasn't a sarcophagus. There was none of that nifty gold paneling the Goa'uld always went in for, this was just plain stone, but as it was the first thing he'd seen he could sit on, at least he could take a load off while Daniel read some of the walls and told them what might lie ahead –

"No!" Daniel dived across the room, yanking him away so violently he almost pulled him over.

O'Neill looked at Daniel in surprise. "What's biting you?"

Daniel was staring at him in mingled exasperation and reproach. "Don't you listen to anything I tell you?"

God, sometimes Daniel sounded so much like Sara it was positively spooky. O'Neill flailed around for an answer that wouldn't get him yelled at. "Some…times."

"I told you what happened to Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu when they sat down in the council chamber!"

O'Neill winced then ran a hand over the stone lid. "It’s not hot, Daniel. I checked." That was a lie but he'd checked now and it wasn't hot so it was as good as telling the truth.

Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter, which he tossed onto the lid. It sizzled on contact with the stone, flickered, glowed, then vanished in a hiss of white light.

"You see?"

O'Neill grimaced apologetically. "Ouch. Good save. Thanks."

"The Goa'uld may have concentrated all their efforts into this one chamber, which is good news if we can get through it alive." Daniel turned them round to face the patterned floor, muttering, "Okay, let me think. When Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu approached Xibalba they came to a meeting place of four roads. One road was red, another black, the third white, and the fourth yellow. The black road said 'I am the road that you must take. I am the way of the Lord.' "

"So we need to walk on the black flagstones?" O'Neill offered.

Daniel shook his head. "No, that was a lie, and according to the myth from that moment on Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were already beaten."

"So which road should they have taken?"

"Um – it never said."

O'Neill raised his eyes to the ceiling. "That's useful."

"But I'm presuming the white road might have been a better choice." Daniel nodded his head towards the end of the chamber. "If this is the same as in the book of Popol Vuh there should be wooden figures down there which look like Hun-Came and Vukub-Came. Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were fooled by them and earned themselves great mortification by addressing them as though they were real."

"So avoiding them completely might be a good idea then?" O'Neill offered.

Daniel moistened his lips. "Except, as your trained soldier's eye has probably already noticed, Jack, there's only the one way in and out of this chamber. I presume that the exit is hidden and we need to work out where it is. As those figures and the pillars behind them with the Goa'uld glyphs on them are the only thing in the room, we might as well head for them."

Smarting a little from that 'trained soldier's eye' crack, O'Neill could nevertheless see Daniel's point. He looked at the tiled floor and groaned inwardly. Hopping from white stone to white stone was not going to be that easy. There were twice as many black slabs as white ones and the white ones were a good jump apart. "Screw this," O'Neill protested. "All these stones might be fine. Have you got another quarter?"

Daniel reached into his pocket and drew out a handful of change. "Two quarters, two nickels and a dime."

"Big spender." O'Neill took the change from him and tossed the first quarter onto one of the black squares. It glowed and then vanished. "Okay, let's skip the black stones." He threw the dime onto the white stone and nothing happened. "That's a good sign." A nickel on the yellow stone disappeared at once, but a nickel on the red flagstone stayed where it was. O'Neill nodded. "Okay, the white tiles and the red tiles are okay then."

As he made to step onto the first white one, Daniel grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "Wait." He took the last quarter from O'Neill's hand and dropped it onto the white stone. It hissed and vanished.

O'Neill jumped back. "Christ!" He looked at Daniel accusingly. "What the hell?"

"The dime obviously wasn't heavy enough to activate the mechanism."

"You know I am really starting to hate the Goa'uld who built this place," O'Neill growled and hopped heavily onto the first red flagstone.

Daniel hadn't learned to play hopscotch when he was a child. In fact he hadn't learned to play hopscotch until he was nearly thirty-two years old when Sam and Janet had been teaching Cassandra how to play it in Janet's back yard and had invited him to play as well. When he'd had to confess that he didn't know the game either, they'd been as shocked as though he'd admitted to never having eaten apple pie. Trying to tell them he'd actually had a very nice childhood right up until the moment when his parents had been killed in front of him hadn't really worked. Janet and Sam had decided Daniel had been a poor deprived boy who'd never had any fun because his parents were too busy digging up things. Saying that as a child his idea of heaven had been messing around in old tombs, and he'd never minded not having other kids to play with because he'd been enjoying himself far too much had just made them exchange pitying looks over his head.

Later, Janet had let him pour hot fudge sauce all over her homemade ice cream without mentioning teeth cavities and Sam had driven over to the other side of town to buy him some of the chocolate walnut cookies he loved even though it wasn't his birthday. Later, he gathered the news about his terrible deprivation had been passed onto Jack because the man had taken him and Teal'c to a baseball game, a football game, and three different movies in a week. Teal'c had been the excuse for this plunge into popular culture but Daniel suspected he had always been intended as the true recipient of these experiences.

As he jumped onto the next red flagstone he could see the carved figures clearly. They were almost frighteningly lifelike; beautiful, arrogant, arrayed in gorgeous robes and with elaborate headdresses. They held golden spheres in their wooden hands, were seated on magnificent thrones which seemed to be made of gold and gave the impression they were looking down on him and Jack with disdain. Daniel tried to read the golden lettering behind them, and was not exactly surprised to find it was a mixture of Mayan and Goa'uld. The symbols for Hurakan, the Quiche-Maya creator of humankind, were prominent, suggesting these two had been the vassals of a much more powerful Goa'uld, possibly a System Lord. Squinting to try to read the glyphs, Daniel could make out something behind the golden thrones which seemed to relate a tale of Vukub-Came and Hun-Came killing Cabrakan and driving out Zipacna.

The colored flagstones ceased before the thrones, the rest of the chamber being paved with what appeared to be ordinary stone, and Daniel was already looking forward to being able to walk normally instead of playing hopscotch on a floor that would vaporize him if he stumbled.

"That's interesting," Daniel offered, jumping onto another red flagstone. "In the Book of Popol-Vuh it was Hun-Apu and Xbalanque who defeated Cabrakan and Zipacna and they were only partially successful…" Seeing Jack had that bored look on his face again. Daniel pointed at a picture on the wall of a giant snake devouring one of the fleeing villains. "That panel might be interpreted as saying that Zipacna lost having his own people to rule and had to become an Underlord to Apophis. We could ask Teal'c about that when we see him again."

He and Jack exchanged a loaded glance. Neither one of them voiced that 'If we see him again' they were both thinking.

The two flagstones in front of the statues were both red and Daniel jumped onto the one in front of Vukub-Came just as Jack landed more awkwardly on the one in front of Hun-Came.

"What happened when Hunhun-whatsit and Rubber Boy talked to these statues?" Jack prompted.

"They were jeered and scoffed at by the lords of the Underworld."

"Well sticks and stones –" Jack's hand abruptly shot out and his fingers closed on Daniel's arm. "What do those things in their hands look like to you?"

Daniel frowned. "Glowing spheres."

"Well they weren't glowing a minute ago. And they look like – "

The next thing Daniel knew he was grabbed and thrown. The floor spun beneath him, a white flag came perilously close and then something hauled him towards a painfully hard but uncolored expanse of grey stone.

He landed half on top of Jack who immediately rolled them over so Daniel was underneath before clamping his hand down across Daniel's eyes.

Even though his closed eyelids and Jack's hand Daniel sensed the light blaze all around them. He felt the percussion blast of something that felt like an explosion although there was no real noise, and then the hand was very cautiously lifted from his eyes. Senses still reeling a little he stared up at the man open-mouthed. "What just happened?"

Still lying on top of him, Jack said in a whisper: "My guess would be electrified floor plus voice activated shock grenades. Good way to mop up the opposition. You okay?"

Daniel nodded. "Think so. You?"

"You need to diet."

"Sorry." Daniel looked up at him. "Although you could lose some weight yourself, you know."

Jack glanced at the painted wall to the right of them and then hissed in exasperation. "Oh for crying out loud!"

Daniel followed his gaze and saw the now familiar representations of Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu celebrating their escape from death with uninhibited gusto.

Jack glared at the pictures in indignation. "Damnit, I was just trying to stop him from going blind!"

Daniel grimaced. "That could be open to…misinterpretation."

"Well, talk about having your motives impugned." Jack clambered awkwardly to his feet and then held out a hand to Daniel, still glaring at the mural as he pulled him up.

"Thanks by the way," Daniel jerked a thumb in the direction of the patterned floor. "For – you know – "

"Any time." Jack was still looking at the pictures.

Daniel made a face. "Can we just move on?"

"I think this might be important."

Daniel looked at him in disbelief. Had he and Jack undergone some kind of weird body swap again? "Jack, Sam has diphtheria remember?"

Jack tapped the wall, making Daniel flinch as he dislodged a flake of red paint. "Look at this. That's you firing the gun into the air. Well it looks more like a zat but it could be a gun. What do the squiggles say?"

Intrigued himself now, Daniel peered over Jack's shoulder. "Um – it's about the bad gods being known by certain signs. 'Their coming was heralded by a great plague which swept the land. And the might of Hun-Came and Vukub-Came did not protect them for the people were unworthy and had not kept faith with their true gods but had become no better than the…' Not sure about this, maybe the 'apes which swing among the trees'."

Jack shrugged. "Go on."

"It says Vukub-Hunapu carried a weapon which 'belched forth thunder, but the great gods Hun-Came and Vukub-Came had left spells of protection for his surviving people, for they had kept faith with their followers although their followers had not kept faith with them, and the weapon of Vukub-Hunapu did no harm to any man, woman, or child. The people wanted to kill the evil gods but the great and mighty Hun-Came and Vukub-Came had left word that only they were able to punish Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu as they deserved. Remembering this the people seized the evil gods and thrust them into the freezing house of Xibalba where the great and mighty Hun-Came and Vukub-Came dealt with them as they saw fit'." He looked at Jack open-mouthed. "That's why we had to have a gun. If we hadn't fired the gun they would have killed us. When I fired the gun into the air they knew we were the bad gods they'd been waiting for and they threw us into Xuxulim-ha instead of sticking us with their spears."

Jack ran a hand through his hair. "Damned lucky you never learned to obey orders then really, isn't it? If you had we'd both be dead by now. Wonder what we need the knife for?"

"I don't know but I bet it said something about it on that tablet Harun showed us."

"Talking of which…" Jack tapped the mural again, sending another flake of paint onto the floor. "Does that look like Harun to you?"

"Don't touch it," Daniel protested.

"Why not?" Jack retorted. "Who else is going to see it except you and me?"

"It's an invaluable record of a vanished civilization."

"It's a crock, Daniel. I would never keep my boots on while doing…that to my fellow evil god. It just wouldn't be good manners. And anyway, the other stuff didn't flake off when I touched it. Why is this doing it?"

"It's probably a different kind of paint." Daniel answered him automatically, still hating the sight of that missing piece of pigment the man had just dislodged, but then it occurred to him that there might be significance there. Why should there be different layers of paint?

Jack's voice cut through his thoughts as he tapped the mural impatiently: "Does that look like Harun to you or not?"

Wincing as another flake of paint floated to the floor, Daniel followed the man's finger to the picture of the robed figure bearing a heavy tablet. The Stargate was depicted behind him, the sun and the moon blazing overhead in a sky divided between night and day. The figure had olive skin but pale blue eyes, and did look remarkably similar to Harun. "Actually, it does. But that doesn't make any sense. Unless – " He could feel the cogs in his mind turning, sifting possibilities. It was automatic to look around for Sam but she, of course, was a prisoner on the other side of the planet, probably dying of diphtheria because of him. There was only Jack to confer with.

Jack was gazing at the mural and shaking his head. "No way in hell could Harun carry that tablet thing. It was carved into the wall and it must have weighed a couple of ton."

"No, but he could carry the knowledge of it in his head." Daniel felt that familiar mixture of excitement and foreboding that new information on missions so often brought. "If he was – say – sent back in time…?"

Jack jerked his head round so fast he almost overbalanced. "What?"

Daniel traced the pictures with his finger, deciphering the glyphs which snaked between each picture. "It says the prophet left his land by night in the third Bak'tun of the new world and came back to it by day in the second Bak'tun because the Gate of Chak Ek', being bent by the sun, had willed it so."

"And in English?"

Daniel blinked, moistening his lips. "Um – let me think, Winal is twenty days, Tun is approximate to an Earth year, K'atun is about twenty years, Bak'tun is about…four hundred years. So, Harun, bearing the knowledge of the tablet, traveled through the gate of the great Star – the Stargate – as the wormhole was 'bent by the sun'. I guess that's a poetic way of saying affected by a solar flare. And ended up on the same world four centuries years earlier."

"Well, that pretty much sucks."

"We need to stop him."

Jack stared at him. "What?"

"We have to stop Harun."

"This from the guy who wouldn't even translate the damned tablet in case it changed future events?"

There was a dangerous edge to Jack's tone not to mention a burn in those brown eyes that made Daniel take a pace backwards. He talked quickly: "But, Jack, they've been torturing people in that temple for centuries as they wait for this non-existent deliverer to arrive. If Harun never went back in time, there would never be any cult of the Chosen One and – "

"And nothing. You and Carter have already said it. You can't change any past event without affecting the future in ways you can't even guess at. We can't alter anything. We can't stop Harun going back."

"But earlier you said – "

"Earlier I wanted to use a tactical advantage to get my team out of a dangerous situation. Now, I don't want anything screwing around with things that may mean we end up dead. Because you were the Chosen One, they let you walk into the temple and get Shokmared. But if you hadn't been the Chosen One, as good little followers of Onuris they might have killed all of us the second we walked through the 'gate. Which means if Harun doesn't go back when he's supposed to, we might all end up dead. No, Daniel, I don't think so."

Daniel only realized he was staring at the man with his mouth open when Jack gave him a glare of exasperation and said, "And stop looking at me like that."

Daniel closed his mouth.

Jack pointed at the other pictures. "Okay, tell me the rest."

Daniel looked at the next panel. "Um – we did a lot of celebrating after surviving the trial of the council chamber."

"I noticed."

Daniel examined the murals, trying not to gape at the acrobatics of Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu despite the fact Hunhun-Apu was so pointedly fair-skinned, grey-haired, brown-eyed, older and a little taller than Vukub-Hunapu, who was unmistakably fair-skinned, brown-haired, blue-eyed, younger and a little shorter than Hunhun-Apu. For the first time he was almost grateful Teal'c and Sam were on the other side of the planet because these damned murals were one part of the mission he'd really rather no one else knew about.

Jack breathing in his ear didn't help his concentration either, especially when the man said curiously, "Can you really do cartwheels?"

"No," Daniel told him forcibly. "And before you ask I can't wrap my ankles around the back of my neck either."

Jack gave him an assessing sideways glance. "Neat trick if you can do it."

"Well I can't," Daniel told him with emphasis. "Now be quiet and let me think." He walked up and down examining the murals. There were so many painted on the wall it was difficult to make sense of them. Vukub-Came and Hun-Came were in there but they were no longer hostile to Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu. There were trials recorded that he and Jack hadn't encountered. According to the murals they had done battle with jaguars, fire, walls of razor-sharp lances, and sword-wielding skeletons. In fact all they'd done was play hopscotch and avoided getting blinded by a shock grenade. Why would the Goa'uld build up the intelligence of its enemies? To make it look better when it eventually defeated them? But wouldn't it make more sense to just have left instructions for the populace to kill anyone who turned up? Why so much emphasis on the need to cast the rival Goa'uld into Xibalba?

He put a hand up to his head. "Okay, I think we're dealing with two different bits of propaganda here. The story left by the Goa'uld and the story Harun is presumably going to tell these people when he goes back in time."

"I got that." Jack tapped the wall again. "Harun over here. Goa'uld over there. Us in the middle."

"Which would explain why there are different kinds of paint being used." Daniel shot Jack another glance of surprise. He was never sure if Jack had got things he was being told or not. Jack definitely faked that dumber than a stump act when it suited him, but most of the time it was just mental laziness on his part so Daniel and Sam would do all the thinking and he didn't have to bother. "Harun's motives are obvious: he's trying to make sure his present takes place – that you and I get through Xibalba alive, get back to the temple and free Sam and Teal'c from Onuris – supposing that's what we do next."

"Well it sounds like a plan to me."

Daniel nodded. "Okay, but what about the Goa'uld pretending to be Vukub-Came and Hun-Came? Those original paintings didn't look as much like you and me but they clearly depicted people who weren't from around here. Bad gods who needed to be thrown into Xibalba. Why? Why would they do that?" He stood on tiptoe to look at the higher murals. "This is very old, much older than four hundred years ago. It could be from a thousand years ago."

"What's a thousand years to a Goa'uld?" Jack shrugged.

Daniel blinked at him. "Of course, you're right. It’s nothing to a Goa'uld. Even without a sarcophagus they could go from host to host…Yes!"

Jack jumped violently. "Christ, Daniel, there could be all kinds of booby-traps in here. Don't yell like that."

Daniel grabbed him and tugged him over to the wall, pointing at the pictures of Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu. "The Goa'uld were planning to come back. But they didn't know if they'd still be in the same hosts so they left instructions that any two non-locals who turned up carrying a weapon more technologically advanced than that of the indigenous population should be cast into Xibalba. If it's them, they're fine, they know their way through the booby-traps they've set. If it's a couple of rival Goa'uld trying to take over the place hopefully the booby-traps will kill them. They didn't bother sticking to the Mayan mythology because they were expecting to be the only people who ever came down here. Harun used that knowledge to insert us into the mythology to make doubly sure we'd come out alive."

"Why didn't he tell us about the booby-traps when we were back in his hut?"

"Because he doesn't know about them yet." Daniel explained it patiently. "We haven’t told him about them, have we?"

"Um – " Jack appeared to be in mental pain. "What?"

"Look, if we find some little notes from Harun telling us how to get out of here, that proves we must get back and tell him what happened to us and how we escaped."

"How?" Jack countered.

"I'm hoping he's told us that."

"And if he hasn't?"

"Then we never got back to tell him how to tell us how we got out of here."

Jack put a hand up to his head. "My brain hurts."

"We can do this." Daniel looked around at the second half of the vast chamber. Apart from the murals on the walls it appeared to be featureless. The floor was made of slabs of grey limestone, there were no windows and very emphatically no doors. He turned his attention to the pillars which divided the chamber. On the far side sat the carved figures of the departed Goa'uld, contemptuously gazing out onto a sea of colored tiles. On this side there were the usual Goa'uld glyphs embossed in gold on the pillars. The mechanism to operate the door, whatever it might be, had to be hidden amongst these glyphs. Daniel approached them cautiously, having to trust to luck that this floor wasn't going to vaporize him as he was now out of small change.

Jack was limping down to the far end of the chamber, still gazing at the murals but also thumping the walls from time to time, presumably to see if he could shift some mechanism that might reveal a door. Daniel thought he was being a little optimistic there. Jack might swear by that tried and trusted method for getting his car started when it gave him trouble, but he didn't think hitting it with a wrench would be likely to kick-start this particular piece of Goa'uld technology, even supposing they'd had a wrench to hit it with.

"Nothing down here," Jack called to him.

You don't say. Daniel resisted the urge to say it aloud. No doubt Jack thought he was being useful, limping around making a lot of noise while Daniel tried to find a correlation between a panel of Goa'uld symbols and a Mayan version of the Kama Sutra, but shutting up and letting him think would actually be more helpful. The glyphs weren't really helping him much. It seemed to be some kind of family tree except the relationships were all in the wrong order, but he could see the symbols for Hathor, Osiris, Ra, Seth, Heru'ur Isis, Apophis, Nepthys, Sokar, Anubis and a dozen others. What their relevance was supposed to be to his and Jack's current situation was an entirely different matter.

Ker-thud. Ker-thud. Jack's leg was obviously getting worse. Daniel tried to concentrate. So, in this mythology Vukub-Came and Hun-Came left the planet, came back as their own mortal enemies, were cast into Xibalba and survived the many trials set for them, emerging victoriously at the end in their true forms. That would work for returning Goa'uld and it was obvious why Harun would have chosen to adapt that myth to help out him and Jack. But how had he helped them? By sticking them in the local book of Popol Vuh as a pair of bad gods who had lots of unrealistically acrobatic sex? Why? What was that supposed to signify? It wasn't as if this was a Hellenic or Spartan culture in which homosexual love would be considered 'better' or 'purer' than the heterosexual kind. If it had been a variation on the Hercules and Hylas myth or else…

"There's nothing down here. Zero. Squat. Zip. Nada – "

"I do speak English, Jack," Daniel tried not to glare at him.

"What's biting you?"

"Will you just shut up and let me think?" He wasn't going to look round and see Jack making a face at him because it wouldn't help his concentration. Concentrate, Daniel. Think. Sam's dying. Teal'c is going to be executed. Harun must have left instructions on how to get out of here, you're just not understanding them.

"Perhaps we're supposed to have sex?"

Daniel jumped as Jack appeared at his shoulder. How hadn't he heard him limping? He moistened his lips and looked at the man levelly. "I don't think so."

Jack shrugged and indicated the wall. "We're trying to work out what Harun told us to do to get out of here, right? Well according to those pictures we're supposed to have lots of sex."

"How could a Goa'uld mechanism be triggered by you and me having sex?"

"Hey, I'm just trying to be helpful."

"Well you're not being helpful."

Jack took a step back, holding up his hands in surrender. "No need to get touchy. I'm just making a suggestion."

Daniel returned his gaze unblinkingly. "Well you go ahead and start without me. And in the meantime I'll try to come up with a solution that actually makes some kind of sense."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was getting a monster of a headache from having to spend so long without his glasses and he was starting to wish he had anyone but Jack with him for this trip. At least Teal'c or Sam might actually listen when he tried to tell them about Mayan mythology. "Okay…coded texts go back almost to the birth of writing itself, so it's probably a cryptogram. Maybe something like the Babylonian Theodicy? No, that would really involve a more sophisticated written language than pictographs. An Atbash? No, that would need an alphabet and strictly speaking we're not dealing with an alphabet here…"

"None of these codes were that complicated, right?" Jack put in. "I mean we're talking pretty simple people, aren't we?"

Daniel looked at him sideways. "The Voynich manuscript was written in code in we think about A.D. 1500. It’s currently sitting in Yale University still waiting for someone to be able to decipher it. Chinese 'grass writing', or tshao shu, the original shorthand, took twenty years to learn but with it a Chinese scholar managed to perfectly transcribe the entire sixteen volumes of Galen as fast as it could be read aloud to him. We have lost more knowledge than we can even imagine, Jack."

Jack patted him tentatively on the shoulder. "You'll work it out. Take some deep breaths."

Daniel resisted the urge to glare at him. The really annoying thing was that the pat on the shoulder was making him feel better but there was no logical reason why it should. He took Jack's advance and did some deep breathing. "Okay, well Hebrew was very widespread. A lot of the people taken through the gate would probably understand it. Maybe the code Harun left us is a form of temurah but not an Atbash. Maybe the Mayan glyphs have been exchanged for something else and I just need to work out the – "

Jack shook his head. "Too complicated. It has to be something relatively easy. We're working against time here and if we get out, Harun would know that. You need to think…simpler."

"It was a widely used literary convention, you'd take the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and divide it into two parts, one being placed above the other, then you exchanged the letter below with the one above it and – "

"Daniel, get real. How would he know you knew that?"

Daniel looked at him for a moment in exasperation at being interrupted and then realized what the man had said. "Of course! What do we know?"

"Not enough?"

Daniel turned and stared at the mural again. "We know we're not gods. And we know we're not down here…" He tried to think of a polite way to phrase it. "…You know..."

"Doin' it?"

"Exactly." Those pictures might look like two guys giving Tiberius a run for his money but as Harun had drawn them, they had to be a coded message only he and Jack would understand. "That's the point, Jack. Anyone else would think this is telling the story of Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu having lots of sex in Xibalba but we would know we hadn't been having lots of sex in Xibalba and the pictures therefore had to mean something else."

Jack looked a little embarrassed. "Right. Obviously."

Daniel stood far enough away from the mural that the features of Hunhun-Apu and Vukub-Hunapu were blurred; and immediately he could see what he had been intended to see from the start: the paleness of the lovers' skin forming patterns against the reddish background which it was just about possible to match up with Late Assyrian cuneiform.

The message was in fact admirably brief.

Daniel said it aloud, " 'Touch only the name of the god you killed first'." He turned to Jack with a grin on his face he couldn't suppress. "Touch only the name of the god you killed first. That must be what opens the door." He bounded back to where the pillar was and hunted around for the eye of Ra. There it was, just as he remembered it. He stretched out a hand to touch it and then hesitated. "Wait a minute. Harun would be going by what you said in the temple, right?"

Jack had limped back over to breathe down the back of his neck again. "Right."

"Can you remember if you said Ra first? Or did you start with Sokar because we killed him last? Or start with Apophis because we hate him the most? Or Hathor because of ladies first?"

Jack looked at him blankly for a moment and then said. "Ra. I said Ra first."

"Are you sure?"

Jack met his gaze. "No. But it would be logical to start with him and I'm a very logical guy."

"Of course. What was I thinking?" Mentally crossing his fingers and wishing for a lucky rabbit's foot, Daniel reached out and pressed firmly on the eye of Ra.

***

So this was what dying felt like.

Carter had never realized how she took breathing in and out for granted before. Not until now when it was such an effort to snatch each inadequate gulp of oxygen. She had her arms braced against the wall, trying to use her shoulder muscles to drag some air into her lungs and then force it out again. Her throat was closing over; air seeping like water through a sponge when once it had gusted without obstruction. She was afraid to look at her own fingernails in case they were already blue. Afraid to think about what dying this way was going to be like. How long would it take? How terrible would the panic become when even these pinpricks of oxygen couldn't get through? She tried to concentrate on anything except the fact she couldn't breathe. The texture of the stone beneath her fingertips; a reddish granite which curved beneath her hand, out of alignment with the rest of the blocks; a faint furring of moss, impossibly delicate, which would be leaving a faint green wash across her skin –

Can't breathe! Can't breathe! Can't breathe!

Panicking wouldn't help. Panicking would make her gasp; increase her heart rate; make her even more dizzy and nauseated than she was already. Panicking was not the answer. What was that Daniel had said earlier about claustrophobia being a reasonable response to certain situations? Unfortunately, panicking to the point where you frothed at the mouth seemed like a reasonable response to your throat closing over.

Teal'c was doing everything he could. He'd helped to prop her up and was rubbing her back in a futile attempt to try to help the air in and out of her starving lungs. God, she was going to suffer brain death; all that knowledge, hers and Jolinar's, lost forever. Another reminder that Teal'c was doing not everything he could, but everything she would allow him to do. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps she was selfish and cowardly. He could save her, if she would let him. He had more guilt to expiate than she could imagine, even with Jolinar's extra centuries of wisdom to assist her. Was she preventing Teal'c from allowing his symbiote into her brain because to do so would leave him without an immune system? Or was she just afraid her own will would be too weak to resist an immature Goa'uld, even with the memories of Jolinar to assist her?

Which frightened her most: dying like this, or living as a host? As she gasped for another sliver of air, Carter wondered if anything could be worse than this slow suffocation. Then she thought of how this way at least it would be over within the hour, whereas as a host she would by dying every day for a thousand years. She felt her resolve return.

"Major Carter…?" There was despair in that question of Teal'c's as he rubbed her back helplessly, trying to usher air into her body that couldn't squeeze it way past the swelling in her throat.

She had no air left to speak but she could shake her head and did so, resolutely. As she tried to drag some more oxygen into her lungs, she met his gaze, trying to keep the panic hidden, trying to make him see that even this was better than the alternative.

His eyes were full of sorrow but he nodded at once. She tried to smile but her need for air was guiding every sinew now; she felt her fingernails splinter on the stone, scraping a jagged line through the moss as she gripped the wall harder, fighting for the next breath. And the next. And the next…

***

Daniel gazed around the chamber open-mouthed. He had thought the massive hallway in which the statues of the departed Goa'uld were sitting had been large and imposing, but that was a supply cupboard to Tutankhamun's tomb compared with this. As he'd pressed the eye of Ra, the far wall had slid back to reveal an echoing chamber in which the ceiling echoed overhead like a second sky. He and Jack had stumbled through a little dazedly, gazing dumbstruck at the piles of discarded technology which sprawled, towered, and interlocked in all directions. Now, the stone grated closed behind them, shutting them into the massive chamber, but the lighting hummed overhead, revealing a door in the long side-wall. One which he sincerely hoped led back to the outside world.

"Cool." Jack limped past him to gaze around the chamber in obvious satisfaction. "A Goa'uld yard sale."

Daniel hurried over to a discarded Horus guard uniform which lay next to a falcon-headed helmet; its once glowing red eyes now dulled to a blind stare.

Jack had already found a zat gun, which he aimed at the Horus guard uniform Daniel had been about to examine. "Damnit, Jack!" Daniel jumped back from the blue-lit helmet in annoyance as it fizzled alarmingly.

Jack shrugged. "We need to know if this stuff works. See any death gliders?"

"Parts of them." Clambering awkwardly over a ragged piece of metal, Daniel found half of a staff weapon and picked it up. He gazed at the snapped off shaft despondently but supposed they could hit Onuris' lion guards over the head with it if all else failed.

Jack tugged a staff weapon out from underneath a precariously balanced pile of serpent guard uniforms, barely hopping back in time as they collapsed like a house of cards in a deafening clatter, throwing up a blanket of dust as they did so.

Daniel coughed pointedly, waving aside the dust to look at him with narrowed eyes. "They must love you in supermarkets."

Jack held up the intact staff weapon in reply. "Mine's bigger than yours."

Spurred on by Jack's example, Daniel looked around for a staff weapon of his own. Jack already had a zat shoved into his waistband, he noticed, and now a staff weapon as well. All Daniel had was his knife. Spying the tell-tale curved head of a staff, Daniel reached for the end of it and gave the weapon a gentle tug. When it didn't move, he tugged it harder and it came away with an odd cracking sound. As he pulled the end out into the light, he realized what the noise had been: there was still a skeletal hand gripping the end. He threw it away in revulsion and then collected himself, realizing that if another archaeologist had been around he would just have made a major idiot of himself. He would have rather Jack hadn't been around to see that either, but at least Jack wouldn't jeer. He gave the man an apologetic shrug. "Sorry. I just wasn't expecting…"

Jack made a face. "What do you suppose this place is anyway? Apart from a Jaffa morgue?"

Daniel looked around at the piece of serpent guard uniform, the broken staff weapons, the zats, shock grenades, the broken fins of death gliders, all tangled together like the debris of a shipwreck caught in a fishing net. "I think it's where the Goa'uld hid anything that might have given the people here an inkling they weren't gods. Anything the local populace might have been able to adapt to forward their own technological development."

Jack limped across to a corner, scrambling awkwardly over another broken death glider. "So, they dumped anything Goa'uldy in here, and then got the hell out of Dodge?"

"Looks that way." Daniel followed the older man's route through the discarded weaponry, finding more confirmation of his theory as he did so. The damaged death glider showed signs of having been blasted from the skies, the front canopy had no glass left in it, and the skeleton inside was missing a head. It was an older model, like the one Teal'c and Hammond had piloted to rescue them from Hathor's forces, the kind with wings especially curved so that the glider could fit through the Stargate. Teal'c had taken Jack as a co-pilot for a few turns above the smoldering remains of Hathor's stronghold before it had coughed itself to a standstill and buried its nose in the mud. Jack had been as disappointed as someone whose father's Porsche had developed engine trouble just before he got to take it on the freeway. He was always complaining about Area 51 not letting him and Teal'c take the longer-winged death gliders they'd salvaged after blowing up Apophis out for a test flight.

Jack shoved aside a serpent guard helmet with his foot and scrambled up to the cockpit of another glider. "One of these things has to be working."

Daniel frowned. "Why?"

The look Jack shot him over his shoulder was full of impatience. "Because we need one."

"Oh right, what was I thinking? O'Neill's Law clearly states that anything essential for a particular plan to work must inevitably become available within the necessary timeframe."

Jack pulled another Horus guard uniform out of the way and tossed into a pile of hieroglyph-inscribed scaffolding. "Works for me."

Sighing, Daniel climbed up to help him, pulling some of the scaffolding off the back to see if there was still a tail fin.

There was. There was also the armored skeleton of a dead Horus guard draped across it, which Daniel pushed away with his foot. It fell to the ground with a clatter of metal and bones that made him flinch.

Jack looked at him in surprise. "Daniel, you're a grave-robber, you do this kind of thing for fun."

"This is different."

"Why?"

"It just is."

They both climbed up it from opposite sides, Daniel standing on a twisted piece of metal to reach the cockpit while Jack scrambled up onto something that looked suspiciously like a pile of dead Jaffa. The death glider was the usual bluish brown so favored by the Goa'uld. Along with every weapon Daniel had ever encountered, it was incapable of looking innocent; like a dead shark in formaldehyde, what you remembered was its teeth. He ran a hand down its smooth surface, feeling that odd lack of friction which Sam had tried to explain to him; something about gravity, he remembered; or had that been its drive system? He wondered guiltily if he tuned out Sam when she talked math to him as often as Jack tuned him out when he talked mythology.

Daniel pulled at the cockpit, trying to get the hood to lift up. He peered through the canopy. "There's someone in there."

"Well I seriously doubt he's still alive after all this time."

Daniel wondered if he should go on a fishing trip with Jack, after all. The prospect had never seemed very inviting in the past, but it did seem like the only way he was ever going to get an opportunity to give the man that good hard shove into a lake he deserved. He took out the knife and tried to insert the tip between the jammed canopy and the glider.

"Don't use that," Jack 's hand shot out to take it from him.

"Why not?" Daniel blinked at him in surprise.

Jack pocketed it as though it was a slingshot Daniel had been caught playing with. "Because we needed the gun so we probably need the knife."

"Well perhaps this is what we need it for?"

"And perhaps it isn't. Let me try." Jack slammed his elbow against the canopy mechanism and it slid back as smoothly as though it had never been stuck.

"Oh, the technical approach. Why didn't I think of that?" Daniel grimaced as he saw the skeleton sitting in the cockpit, his serpent guard uniform still clinging to his fleshless bones. "That could be Teal'c."

"Teal'c wasn't even born when this battle took place." Jack reached in, grabbed the skeleton by the collar of his serpent guard uniform, and yanked it out of the cockpit, tossing it onto the floor. It shattered into pieces, a dry white femur skittering across the floor.

"Jack!"

"What?"

Daniel held out an expressive hand. "This is a – "

Jack held up a warning finger. "This is not an archaeological dig, and so we are not going to bother about protecting the integrity of the damned site. And if we start talking about protecting the integrity of the damned site we're going to get smacked round the back of the head. Okay?"

Daniel shot him a reproachful look, remembered that there was no time for anything except saving Sam and Teal'c, sighed, then peered into the now vacant cockpit. It smelt musty and there didn't seem any way of knowing if it would still have a usable fuel supply after so many centuries of neglect. "Can you fly one of these?"

"I'm a colonel in the United States Air Force, Daniel. We can fly anything." Jack's face and voice couldn't have given away less if it had been Fort Knox.

It was all he could do not to roll his eyes in disbelief. Jack was impossible when he was in this shiny-button mood. "No, but really, can you fly it? Has Teal'c shown you what the instrument panel thingamajig does? Has he…?"

Jack maneuvered himself into the cockpit, swearing as he scraped his leg on the side of the glider. "A little faith if you don't mind, Daniel. Teal'c isn't the only guy on SG-1 who can wing it with Goa'uld technology."

Daniel looked at him for a moment. "Yes, he is."

Jack jabbed an imperious finger at the far wall. "Go find me a door and then open it."

As Daniel scrambled awkwardly down from the death glider and started looking around for an exit, he hoped that for once Jack knew what he was talking about. The man had surprised him plenty of times in the past with both his unexpected strengths and his unexpected weaknesses. It was true, of course, that Jack was a Special Ops veteran, a man who had made colonel in the United States Air Force, and was now the team leader of SG-1. But he was also someone who couldn't divide a restaurant bill by four, three, or some days, even two, without use of a napkin, a pencil, and a lot of bad language, so Daniel hoped that flying a death glider didn't involve too much use of math. He also hoped that the instrument panel on the death glider was self-explanatory because even after three years of friendship with Teal'c the only Goa'uld Jack knew was 'Kree!'

Seeing the eye of Ra on the pillar, he realized those questions were all going to be answered very soon; hopefully in a way that didn't involve Jack and himself getting slammed into a Mayan temple at speed-of-light velocity. He pressed the glyph and one of the walls began to slide backwards slowly; making his eyes water from brilliant actinic shafts which revealed more dancing dust motes; the dead cells of dead Jaffa forming a graceful double helix in the sunshine. He looked over at Jack and the man beckoned to him impatiently. As he ran back to the death glider which was starting to hum with suppressed energy, Daniel glanced over his shoulder at that wall still slowly sliding to the left, letting in the light which would already have turned the color of blood on Teal'c and Sam's side of the planet.

He knew they shouldn't leave the door open. The locals would find this stash of Goa'uld technology; these weapons which never would and never could be a force for good; but it would take too long to work out how to close the wall again and he had a feeling once Jack got this thing going, just steering in the right direction was going to need all his skill. They had probably just handed the people here the means to destroy the people on Harun's side of the planet. One day the Deathchild would wander in here and find the means to fulfill his bloody destiny. But perhaps they'd also left these people the proof that the Goa'uld were not and never had been gods. And in the meantime Sam and Teal'c must be very close to death by now; the deadline almost reached.

He breathed it to himself as he scrambled up into the glider behind Jack, a spur and an apology for whatever culture shock they were leaving in their wake: " ' Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus…'"

Jack gave him a confused look over his shoulder. "What?"

Daniel pulled the straps across his body and felt the restraints lock into place. He took a deep breath and then pointed at the instrumental panel. "It's Virgil. It means…punch it."

Jack nodded. "Consider it punched."

A second later the G-force was slamming Daniel so far back into the padded seat he wondered if even a whole team of archaeologists would ever be able to excavate his remains from that cockpit…

***

Major Carter was losing the fight and they both knew it. Teal'c could read it in the panic in her eyes, and he knew she must be able to read it in the despair in his. The damp cell echoed to the sound of her labored breathing, her arms braced against the wall as she fought to drag a gasp of air into her lungs. Teal'c rubbed her back again helplessly, but he was watching her suffocate by slow degrees.

"Come with us."

It was odd to hear the tongue of his birth spoken again. He had trained himself to think as well as speak in the language of the Tau'ri, and sometimes it even penetrated his dreams, but this was still his first language: The language of his father, and of his father's murderer. Teal'c looked up to see the High Priest standing in the doorway, flanked by lion guards. He had been so intent on Major Carter's struggle that he had not even noticed them arrive.

"Your Chosen One has not come." The High Priest said it without inflection, and Teal'c was surprised to see no flicker of satisfaction in his gaze. "You are to be executed. The woman is to die where all can watch as she breathes her last."

Assessing the number and strength of the lion guards blocking the exit, Teal'c knew any attempt to overpower them would almost certainly fail. And besides it would avail him nothing. Even if he killed them all then carried Major Carter out of the temple, death would accompany them, and they could not outrun it. As he bent and lifted her into his arms, the dying rays of the sun turned her hair the color of copper, drew a red-gold finger down the side of her face. He saw the panic flicker in her eyes again as she struggled to drag some air into her lungs; her whole body convulsing with the effort of trying to breathe. Even in the fading light he could see her lips were turning blue.

"You have nothing to say?" the priest demanded sharply.

Was it Teal'c's imagination or was there a hint of disappointment in Rahotep's tone? He wondered if it was written that 'Wrath' had fought with the lion guards; if he was failing to live up to some false prophecy which even those who claimed not to believe in perhaps still hoped to witness. As he drew level with the High Priest, he looked him in the eye. "Whether Major Carter and myself live or die, Onuris is still a false god." He could hear the death-rattle of Major Carter's lungs, feel her shoulders bracing as she tried to snatch some air from somewhere, trying to drag it past a throat that was swollen almost closed.

"As your savior has not arrived in time, you will die."

Again there was that curious lack of satisfaction in the man's tone.

"Then we will die," Teal'c met his gaze unflinchingly. He even managed a quiet smile. "We have died before."

He didn't wait to see that glimmer of surprise in the High Priest's eyes, but swept past the lion guards and carried Major Carter towards the main chamber of the temple, his head held high. Inside he could feel the anguish twisting within him like a second symbiote. He was going to have to stand and witness her death, or as she struggled for her last few breaths, she was going to have to watch him cut down in front of her. He thought of O'Neill and Daniel Jackson's despair at being unable to reach them, even supposing they were still alive to feel anything. Onuris might have banished them to the depths of the ocean, or the center of a volcano. Teal'c would put nothing past the Goa'uld.

He could see the torches burning; the rubble swept away, the temple apparently restored to its former glory. But nothing could disguise the broken statue; the feet all that remained of what had once been a towering stone Onuris. Only the stone lions had retained any of their majesty. Teal'c could see the pale faces of the populace, the serried ranks of ragged slaves herded into tiers to witness their defeat. He hoped it was written that they died well.

As he strode through the archway into the temple, he saw that Major Carter was almost out of time. Her tongue and lips were blue, and although her chest was heaving as she tried to snatch some oxygen, he suspected that very little was now getting through. He was aware of flaming torches; Onuris and Mehit, magnificently robed, kohled eyes glowing as they turned their gaze upon them; her lionesses yawning with boredom, held on too short a chain to pace; white-skinned priests blurs of uncolor at the edge of his vision; the tell-tale gleam of fire on a blade. Perhaps he would die as his father had died; the blood of the symbiote mingled with his own: mutual enemies unwillingly torturing one another at the moment of death.

Onuris beckoned to him imperiously and Teal'c approached with his head held high. Although his gaze held that of the Goa'uld, all his senses were centered on Major Carter; her weight in his arms, her body heaving with her desperate need to breathe; the panic she was trying to conceal from him as the oxygen wouldn't come.

The Goa'uld looked at him contemptuously. "What have you to say for yourself, Jaffa?"

Although Onuris had addressed him in English, Teal'c answered him in a language everyone in the temple could understand: "You are not a god and our deaths will not make you one. Nor shall a million others." Teal'c saw no reason to disguise the contempt he felt for this parasite within a human host as his words echoed around the stone interior.

As the gasps of excitement and surprise ran through the watching populace, he realized he must just have unwittingly fulfilled another part of the prophecy.

Onuris moved close to him, his face barely an inch from Teal'c's. He whispered softly in English: "Proclaim me your god and I will save the woman."

The offer was so unexpected that Teal'c stared at him dumbfounded. He instinctively looked down at the dying teammate in his arms, hoping she hadn't heard. Perhaps he could –

Her expression showed she had. Major Carter's fingers closed on his jacket and she tugged at it determinedly then shook her head.

"Major Carter - ?"

She tried to say the word but she had no breath left, but her mouth formed it with vehemence: No.

As she mouthed it at him silently, the last hope died inside him. He closed his eyes then slowly raised his head to meet Onuris' gaze as if he had never known that moment of doubt. "You are not a god, and Major Carter and myself will not proclaim you anything except a parasite."

The Goa'uld's eyes flashed gold with fury. "Then you will die!" But there was fear there. He raised his hand and then lowered it again.

Teal'c smiled mirthlessly. "Of course, if it is written that we died by your hand then you will have only proven that the prophecy spoke true and Daniel Jackson is the Chosen One."

Onuris gritted his teeth then raised his hand with determination. Teal'c felt heat against his forehead, felt it play across his tattoo, realizing that Onuris was illuminating the brand of his rival even as he tried to display his power. The heat grew worse, began to burn into his brain. His symbiote was wriggling frantically. Major Carter was trying to say his name, blue lips opening soundlessly. Just as the pain dragging him down into darkness overwhelmed him, he thought he heard O'Neill's voice sounding from a long way away:

"Tell the fat lady to stop singing right now!"

O'Neill had taken in the scene in a second: Carter looked on her last legs and Teal'c was having his brain fried. Covert was not an option. But once they'd announced themselves they were going to be in trouble. About a hundred staff weapons to one kind of trouble. All they had on their side was a damned prophecy they hadn't read in which they might or might not die.

Standing in the doorway of the temple with the night wind whipping at his hair, he reckoned he was doing a pretty good job of appearing in control of the situation. In fact the place was filled to the gunwales with people who wanted Daniel to be a god he wasn't, and lion guards who served a Goa'uld who hated him and Daniel with a passion, and they had only a staff and a zat between the pair of them and imminent death. But hell, they'd got here. Okay, it had been by the seat of their pants and some near fatal contacts with the tops of tall trees as that damned glider looped loops he'd never told it too. And, yes, that hadn't been the smoothest landing in the world, but they'd still got here. Against all likelihood and commonsense the impossible prophecy had ushered them back to the temple where it had all begun like a police escort around a presidential car. Now they just had to persuade Onuris not to kill them all over again.

The lion guards were already coming forward, staff weapons at the ready. He could see Teal'c staggering as the Goa'uld lowered his hand in disbelief, ribbon device still flaring. As he watched, Teal'c slumped against the wall and slid down it, Carter still grasped in his arms even as he passed out. At least he hoped he'd only passed out. He wouldn't have put it past Teal'c to hang onto a failing teammate even as he was dying. But whether dead or only unconscious, the Jaffa clearly wasn't in a position to give them a lot of help.

Daniel darted him a quick glance. "What do we do now?"

O'Neill limped forward. "Look like we know what we're doing."

Onuris' eyes flared with menace as his gaze fell on Daniel. "You!"

Mehit also strode forward, her fingers tightening reflexively on the chain she gripped. "You dare to return to our temple!"

O'Neill shrugged. "What? You're surprised to see us?" He patted Daniel on the shoulder, "Just call this boy Paul Atreides. 'For he was the Kwisatz Hederach…'"

"What?" Daniel was blinking at him in confusion again. He wished Daniel would stop doing that. It really took off his godly aspect.

"Remind me to give you a normal upbringing when we get home." O'Neill limped further into the chamber, the night breeze coming in behind them like a late guest, the gust of it making the candle flames lie down as if exhausted. He darted another glance at Teal'c across the smoke and metallic shimmer of lion guards. The Jaffa had his head bowed, and Carter was heaving convulsively in his arms.  If her throat hadn't completely closed over it was clearly about to any second. "Teal'c?" When there was no reply, he gritted his teeth. "Carter?"

"They are dying." Onuris told him it with malevolent softness.

O'Neill tried to keep his face blank despite the way his guts lurched. "They're tougher than you think."

"The woman was cursed for her blasphemy. All who do not believe in me will suffer her fate."

"It's not a curse, it's diphtheria." Beside him, he was very aware of Daniel doing the same as he was: trying to walk as though he wasn't expecting to be killed any second while every tendon thrummed with tension as he waited for the inevitable staff weapon blast. Daniel addressed the populace. "It's an illness that you all carry but you're probably immune to it. The priests have already wiped out most of the population on the other side of the planet with it. We were probably supposed to get it as well – "

Onuris strode forward rapidly. "I warned you what I would do to you if you dared return here."

Daniel held up the zat gun. "We had an arrangement. Jack and I got back here within the time you gave us. Now let us take Teal'c and Sam and go."

Onuris looked contemptuously at the zat gun. "You would not dare fire upon your god."

"You're not anyone's god, least of all mine." Daniel met his gaze unflinchingly. "And: watch me."

Trying to monitor the situation between Daniel and Onuris, to assess how close to death Carter and Teal'c might be, and keep an eye on the lion guards who looked as if they might be preparing to rush him, O'Neill only caught the glimmer of Mehit's bracelets out of the corner of his eye as she let go of the chain. The lions were already bounding towards him as he belatedly caught her hissed 'Kill him!'

Before he could react, Daniel had wheeled around and fired, the zat gun enveloping the first lioness in blue light. O'Neill tried to bring up the staff weapon as the second one lunged for his throat. There was a suspended moment when he stared into angry yellow eyes, saw the red maw yawning, dagger white teeth clearly hungering for his throat. Meaty breath warmed his forearm and then blue light engulfed the big cat to send the lioness crashing unconscious to the stone floor. He staggered back, stung by the residue of the zat blast which had licked past him, and was just in time to see Onuris reach out and swipe the zat gun from Daniel's grasp. It skittered across the floor out of both of their reach as the Goa'uld's hand shot out to grab Daniel by the throat, yanking him almost off the ground. Onuris jerked his head at O'Neill angrily and said to his Jaffa. "Seize him."

As the lion guards moved purposefully towards him, O'Neill raised the staff weapon. "I don't think so." As the staff flared in readiness, he saw the Jaffa hesitate, and he hoped the look in his eyes told them how little it would bother him to blast a hole through every one of them.

O'Neill darted a quick glance at the watching crowd, trying to assess their mood. He couldn't see Harun yet but he hoped he was around somewhere. He spoke quickly to Onuris, "I thought you told us we had three nights to get back. Well – we're back. The deal was if we managed that you'd let us go, so why don't you be a mensch and stick to your side of the bargain?"

He looked at Daniel to see if the linguist could come up with a clinching argument and realized that speech was not a possibility for his teammate right now. Daniel was on tiptoe, gulping for air as Onuris squeezed his windpipe. Onuris was gazing into Daniel's eyes with loathing, snarling savagely, "I will give you to my Jaffa. They can you enjoy you while your 'followers' watch."

"That wasn't the deal," O'Neill said it shortly. "You said you'd save Carter and let the rest of us go. Why don't you keep your damned word just for once?"

Onuris only smiled with pleasure, gaze fixed on Daniel's face. "Before they are done with you, insect, you will beg me for the mercy of death." As O'Neill aimed the staff weapon, Onuris pulled Daniel in front of his body as a shield, jerking his head at O'Neill contemptuously and snapping at his Jaffa, "Seize him now."

O'Neill swung the staff weapon and fired, his first blast taking out a Jaffa who went down at once, but there were others closing in too fast for him to get them all. He fired again, and again, but then they were on him, overwhelming him. The staff weapon was ripped from his hand, he was backhanded so hard across the face the whole temple spun out of focus, then a fist slammed into his kidneys.

Through the sea of Jaffa surrounding him, he watched Onuris hold Daniel at arm's length by the throat, then raise the hand device. The beam flared greedily, dancing on Daniel's forehead, forcing Daniel to his knees as Onuris began to fry his brain with that torturing light.

"Let him go!" Struggling desperately against the lion guards still trying to pound him into submission or unconsciousness – they didn't seem to care which came first – O'Neill saw the pain etched onto Daniel's face, his left hand gripping Onuris' wrist but without the strength to push the ribbon device away. "Teal'c!" His cry didn't even elicit a twitch from the Jaffa.

Through the blood running into his eye, O'Neill watched Onuris lift his hand and step back, satisfaction on his face as Daniel slumped to the ground, conscious but with his hands pressed to his head in pain. The Goa'uld glanced across at O'Neill then nodded to the lion guards. "Do not kill him yet. I want him to watch this one die."

"You son-of-a-bitch, we had a deal!" O'Neill struggled desperately against hands that felt as unyielding as steel bands, anger burning white hot inside him, but the apprehension knotting itself around his guts. This was Netu again. He had a staff weapon burn thrumming through his leg, disabling him, while a Goa'uld had the power of life and death over his team. Except this time it was even worse than on Netu because Teal'c wasn't on a Tok'ra tel'tak in position to rescue them; he was crumpled against the wall, unconscious, with a three-quarters dead Carter in his arms. And this time Daniel really was going to be raped right in front of him.

Through a blur of rage and pain, O'Neill snatched a glance at the Goa'uld's First Prime. Seven foot of lion guard with muscles on his muscles, and an anticipatory smile on his face. It was clear that he had received these kinds of 'rewards' before.

Onuris' voice sounded fat with triumph: "Gods do not bargain with slaves. They dispose of them as they see fit."

"You made a promise, you lying piece of shit. Do you want everyone in this temple to know you don't keep your word?" He could hear the fear roughening his voice. He sounded what he was: powerless. At the crucial moment he seemed to have lost the ability to bluff. Oh God, he'd let Daniel come back here. He'd heard what the Goa'uld had threatened to do to him and he'd still let him come back. What the hell had he been thinking?

Onuris reached down and grabbed Daniel by the hair, jerking his head back. Daniel's gasp of pain echoed across the temple and O'Neill caught a glimpse of confused blue eyes; Daniel still dazed from the searing shock of the ribbon device egg-whisking his brain. Onuris gazed into Daniel's eyes, his own glaring gold with hatred. His voice was soft but very clear. "I wish everyone to know what becomes of those who oppose my will. I wish everyone to witness how terrible is my wrath."

"We had a deal!" O'Neill tried to elbow the lion guards away, earning himself more sense-spinning blows. As a backhand cracked his skull against the wall, blackness swooped and he clung to consciousness by a fingernail, torches dissolving into spear-points of light. He could taste blood in his mouth, bile in his throat, defeat in every breath. "You double-crossing scumsucker, Onuris, let him go!"

Onuris jerked Daniel roughly to his feet by the hair, then pulled him round to show to the shocked and silent populace. "Behold your 'deliverer' now." He waved a contemptuous hand at Teal'c and then Jack. "Behold your avatars now. Witness how your true god, your only god, punishes those who blaspheme against him." He turned to meet the gaze of his mate, and O'Neill watched that smile spread across her face, the way her tongue flickered greedily across her red painted lips. It was so long since he'd seen Hathor he'd forgotten just how ugly a beautiful woman could be. Still gazing adoringly at Mehit, Onuris threw Daniel contemptuously at his First Prime. Not troubling to look at his victim or the one he had just rewarded, Onuris waved a dismissive hand. "Take him."

"No!" O'Neill slammed his right elbow into the lion guard behind him, raked his heel down the shin of another, jerked his head back in the hope of breaking someone's nose, then threw himself forward. Hands closed in his hair and dug into his flesh, while he tried to elbow, kick, wrench and bite them off him. But he knew it wasn't going to work; he wasn't going to get free; and Daniel was going to be ground into the dust by Jaffa after Jaffa while he screamed for help that O'Neill couldn't give him.

An arm around his neck tried to throttle him into submission as the first prime backhanded Daniel across the face, sending him staggering before a meaty hand shot out to seize the front of Daniel's t-shirt, dragging him against the muscular Jaffa's chest. He saw fingers like frankfurters fasten in Daniel's hair, jerking his head back, a sly glance shot in his direction, the lion guard clearly relishing his audience, before a cruel mouth swooped and bruised.

He didn't even know what threats he was screaming as Daniel struggled desperately, trying to spit that unwanted tongue out of his mouth, to jerk his head away in disgust. O'Neill slammed his elbow into the guts of the Jaffa trying to choke him as Daniel used his knee in a way surely only Carter could have taught him. The stranglehold released enough to let O'Neill grab a mouthful of air, but Daniel's attempt at self-defense earned him only a savage backhand that sent him sprawling.

He'd never realized he knew so many threats; or how loudly and hoarsely he could yell them even when his throat was raw. As he struggled futilely against the grip of too many hands, calling down every evil upon the head of Onuris' first prime if he didn't get the hell away from Daniel right now, O'Neill's gaze met that of the Goa'uld's High Priest. The man's hairless skin looked bloodless in the flickering torchlight; robes billowing in the night breeze, the feathers painted on his forehead looking like scars. The priest must have picked up the zatgun at some point because he was holding it in his hands as though he didn’t quite know how it came to be there. As their eyes met across the bodies on the floor, Daniel trying to struggle out from beneath the crushing weight of the first prime who was slapping him around in between ripping the t-shirt from his chest, O'Neill saw the distaste wash across the High Priest's face. For the first time it occurred to him how Father O'Malley might have felt if Jehovah had arrived in his church one day and sent his angels in to the congregation to smite the ungodly. There were things in the Bible even priests probably never wanted to witness. And in any culture, this wasn't exactly a pretty sight.

He held the man's gaze. "Help us!"

The High Priest looked at him for a long moment and then slowly shook his head.

O'Neill swore savagely, and jerked his head round. "Harun!" O'Neill yelled it in desperation as the first prime tore at Daniel's belt buckle. Daniel was fighting with everything he had, blood running from his mouth from the last backhand, the cut on his cheekbone opened up by another savage blow. But O'Neill could see the panic behind Daniel's grim determination; the same panic he could hear in his own voice: "Harun! Help us!"

As more kicks and punches landed, trying to batter him into silence, he realized it was futile: if it was written that this was how they died, then this was how they would die. Teal'c bleeding internally from the ribbon device; Carter asphyxiating as her throat closed over. He'd probably be beaten to death while Daniel was passed from lion guard to lion guard.

He tried to make eye contact with someone, anyone in those freakin' stands, all standing there watching them die by inches, horror and disbelief on their faces, but not one of them making a move forward. "Help us!" he shouted. None of them moved.

"Harun!" His yell echoed around the temple so loudly he could hear the despair in it, the anguish. A sound like birds taking flight from some calamity. The first prime had undone Daniel's belt now. He pulled it from the belt loop triumphantly, making a noose with it, which he pulled over Daniel's head. Yanking it tight, he used the end of the belt to lash around Daniel's wrists, so Daniel couldn't hit him with his bound hands without choking himself.

"Teal'c!" O'Neill yelled it again but the Jaffa hadn't moved and he looked frighteningly still. Carter didn't seem to be breathing either. Anguish tore through him as he realized two of his teammates were probably already dead. And Daniel was going to be next. By bringing Daniel back here, O'Neill had gambled everything and lost.

Seeing the first prime's meaty hands close on Daniel's pants, making ready to drag them down from his hips, O'Neill screamed it again: "Harun!"

The lion guard to his left, turned and snarled something to the others a millisecond before a fist came straight for O'Neill's jaw. As he was falling he realized that snapped order in Goa'uld must have been the order to release him because the floor was coming up to meet him very fast. He landed on his bad leg; a lightning bolt of pain shooting down to his toes while his ribs screamed a protest. As he felt the blood running down his face, and saw the struggling blur on the floor which he knew to be Daniel receding like something at the wrong end of a telescope, he realized he was right on the edge of passing out again. He saw a shimmer of bare flesh, an impossible length of leg revealed to an accompanying sound of ripping cloth; a dark hand upon a pale thigh, the hiss of Mehit's satisfaction, Daniel turning his head so their eyes met. Daniel mouthing it at him desperately across the floor: Don't look, Jack. Please.

Hovering on the brink of that plunge into oblivion, O'Neill realized this time the best thing he could do for his only surviving teammate really was to pass out.

***

He had never known a pain so terrible or a darkness so deep, but more strongly than either of those things, he knew that he was needed. Far away he could feel his symbiote trying to reach him, hatred in the tendrils it stretched out to him, and need; like an enemy offering him a rope from a fast-flowing torrent. But this was a river of ice running through every vein; a searing agony which awakening would make a hundred times worse. Giving up would be so painless by comparison, but he was his father's son, and his mother's son, and he did what was right, not what was easy. Yet it felt as if he was such a long way from life, and the rope the symbiote was offering him burned with fire. Closing his mind to the pain, he set his hands to the rope and began to haul himself towards the bank…

"Teal'c!"

Teal'c jerked his eyes open; pain slicing through his brain like a heated blade. It took him a moment to know where he was; the air seemed full of smoke; the torchlight gliding away from itself then back again; the walls appearing to shimmer. When he blinked, his eyesight did not clear. There were moving blurs all around him, and another blur in his arms.

" Teal'c! " The voice of Daniel Jackson. The voice that had dragged him back to consciousness. "Help me!"

He could not see him, but he could hear the despair in his cry. He tried to get up but the weight of Major Carter in his arms was more than he could lift now. He was trapped by her as if by a falling log, even though he knew he could carry with her ease. He tried again, but there was no strength in his arms, or legs. His symbiote had not yet fully healed him.

"I cannot!" He shouted it into the smoke-streaked swirl of light and dark, trying to reach the blur that was his friend.

He heard Mehit laugh, harsh with anticipation and triumph; heard Onuris say 'Now they will realize their god is no better than a whore…'

Turning his head, Teal'c managed to focus on Daniel Jackson. He was the pale struggling blur lying supine on the floor, the armored bulk of Onuris' first prime, pinning him to the flagstones. He saw a muscular right arm move swiftly, heard the sound of a slap, a stifled grunt of pain, the rip of cloth, a thick chuckle of anticipation. He could smell the lion guard's eagerness from ten feet away, was aware of the other Jaffa all looking that way with more than idle curiosity. The Goa'uld would think it only fitting to condemn a rival to such a degrading death. Gritting his teeth, Teal'c tried again to lift Major Carter from his lap, but the ribbon device had stolen all his strength. "I cannot!" he repeated it desperately.

"Not your fault, Teal'c…" He heard Daniel Jackson gasp it in between some exertion, heard the panic in his voice, as well, the fear he was trying to disguise. He was clearly trying to get free but had stopped believing it was possible. He was only still fighting because the alternative was too terrible for him to contemplate.

"Harun!" Teal'c shouted it desperately into the swimming darkness. "Harun!" He heard his voice echoing around the temple, his fingers fumbling for a pulse at Major Carter's neck as he shouted for help he knew he was not going to receive. "Major Carter?" He waited for her eyelids to flicker as they had before. When he bent his head he thought he felt breath gust faintly against his cheek but then as a cold wind caressed his skin he realized it could have been a sudden draught of chill night air.

"Help them!"

Hope almost choked him, Teal'c swallowed such a lump of it at once. He jerked his head round in disbelief to see a dark blur standing in the doorway, the wavering line of a discarded staff weapon in his hand. He blinked hard and briefly the figure had an outline he could recognize: Harun.

Harun called to the people in the tiers. "Help them."

There was a frozen moment of indecision and Harun spoke again. "Help them not because they are gods or avatars, but because their deaths are something we can prevent. Help them because it is right…"

Teal'c could hear Harun's voice very clearly, but behind him he could hear the whisper rustling through the crowd, like fire on summer corn, gaining power with each gust: 'The prophecy is true! So it is written! It is written that the deliverer came to the temple carrying a staff of fire and that he spoke out against the false god. It is written that he should come from afar, and be one of us, and then be taken from us…'

Harun was still telling them that the prophecy was not what mattered. That they had done wrong when they let an innocent man be tortured in the hope of their own salvation. That they should make amends to the strangers among them who had suffered on their behalf.

But the crowd was listening to its own music, and Teal'c realized the prophecy did not matter; the truth did not matter; in the end it would not even matter why right was done, as long as it was done. If these people saved SG-1 because they believed them to be angels, or because they believed Harun to be their deliverer, they would still be saved.

Teal'c watched that mass of pale swimming circles begin to move, shuffling forwards, not fast, but with quiet determination. So many of them. So many people Onuris had herded into the temple to witness the defeat of their deliverer; a tide which definitely appeared to have turned.

"Tel'muk, Kree!" Onuris was backing up, he and Mehit pressing together as the people poured down the stairs, more bobbing faces carried on a sea of whispered prophecy.

Teal'c blinked hard, stealing another glimpse of clarity, and saw the First Prime snarl in frustration, then backhand Daniel Jackson again, clearly blaming him for this interruption. Teal'c saw the complacency on the Jaffa's face, the belief that these people were sheep to be herded slowing his reactions as he readjusted his clothing; half of his attention was still focused on the satisfaction which had just been postponed.

"Tel'muk!" The fear in Onuris' voice made the First Prime jerk his head round in surprise. Which was when he saw the people moving in on him. As the First Prime opened his mouth to issue the orders to his lion guards, Teal'c saw Daniel Jackson kick Tel'muk with everything he had, double-footed, in the groin.

Tel'muk's scream of pain and rage was like a taper to a signal beacon. The crowd erupted. Teal'c blinked again, but the scene was too blurry; he was aware of Onuris shouting orders; lion guards firing staff weapons; the smell of burning flesh, spilled blood; the sound of screams; the roar of anger; but underneath it all was that same quiet determination; that same conviction; the power of belief.

He looked back down at Major Carter, his eyesight clearing enough for him to see the greyish tone to her skin. Her lips no longer had any trace of pinkness.

"My Lord."

Teal'c looked up in surprise to find Harun bending over him anxiously.

Despite the pain, and the dead weight of Major Carter in his arms, Teal'c found a tired smile. "You are their deliverer now."

"I am not." Harun spoke rapidly. "But it is written that another avatar of the Chosen One came to the temple and bade the people save his god. I waited but when no avatar came, I took his place. I used the holy prophecy to serve my own wishes. I will be damned for this."

"Do you still not understand?" Teal'c began. "It was always you who saved – "

"Teal'c!" Daniel Jackson was on his feet, tearing at his belt buckle with his teeth, trying to get it undone. The pale blur that was his face had dark marks on it, but at least his lips were not blue like Major Carter's.

"Is Sam…?" Daniel Jackson barely seemed aware of Harun undoing the belt around his wrists, although as soon as it was undone, he ripped it from his neck, and hurled it away with revulsion.

Teal'c was still trying to find a pulse in her neck. "I am not sure if she is still breathing."

"Jack…" Daniel Jackson turned and ran into the middle of the fighting.

"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c tried to shout it with authority but the young man had already disappeared back into the bloody smoke of the battle.

Harun put his finger to Major Carter's neck, shaking his head. "The prophecy said Compassion died and was mourned by all."

"The prophecy said you are an avatar of the Chosen One, even though you are only a good man with a conscience. The prophecy is meaningless." Teal'c slapped her face lightly. "Major Carter?" As she did not stir, the fear in his heart so completely overwhelmed the pain he no longer even felt it. She had drifted into unconsciousness so many times before in the past few days. Each time he had been able to awaken her. He was determined that she would not slip through his fingers now when help was so close at hand. He tightened his grip on her. "Major Carter!" But this time there was no response at all.

***

"Jack…?"

Daniel…?

"Jack!"

"Daniel!" O'Neill jerked his eyes open. "Get away from him, you son-of-a…!" He blinked in surprise as he found himself gazing up into those familiar anxious blue eyes. For a moment Daniel's face was a blur but then it swam back into focus. The guy had looked better. His face was bruised and cut, and there was blood trickling from his nose and mouth, but he was alive, still more or less dressed, and he wasn't being gang-raped by lion guards. That was definitely an improvement on the last time he'd seen him.

"Are you okay?" Daniel pressed.

Are you? O'Neill had learned a long time ago not to ask questions which might have answers he couldn't deal with. "I'm alive."

"Well, Teal'c's badly hurt and I think Sam may be dead." Daniel stared at O'Neill fixedly and he got the rest of the message no trouble at all: 'That was the bad news, now make it better. Do something. Help them!' Why was it that Daniel never woke him up just to hand him the newspaper and a nice hot cup of coffee? Why was it always because he needed O'Neill to make the world spin the other away again?

"Carter's not dead." He tried to get to his feet and the chamber spun alarmingly. Daniel's hand under his elbow was a welcome help. Over to his left there was the smoke and blood of a battle going on. The people seemed to have finally decided to rebel. Well better late than never but he'd get to that later. Right now he had some teammates to bring back from the dead.

"Teal'c thinks she isn't breathing."

O'Neill wondered if Daniel knew how hard he was shaking; how deeply he must be in shock. He wasn't going to ask what had happened while he'd been unconscious. If Daniel had been raped then this wasn't the time or the place to fix it. Better to get him focused on other things. They could do the therapy later. "Is her heart beating?"

"I don't know." As Daniel automatically took his weight to help him, O'Neill could feel the younger man's body reverberating against his, tremors rattling their hipbones together like a pair of tambourines. Daniel helped him limp around the outskirts of the battle, not even blinking when a lion guard was blasted with his own staff weapon right next to them, totally focused on O'Neill and his teammates. "Teal'c can't move and Sam's lips are blue."

"That's what happens with diphtheria." O'Neill kept his voice as calm and steady as he could make it. "It's fixable." God, Daniel was shaking so hard he was like someone with dengue fever. That bastard Jaffa was so dead.

"How is being dead 'fixable'?" Daniel grimaced to fight back tears of reaction. "It's my fault. This is all my fault…"

"Daniel!" He said it sharply. "Trust me on this. Teal'c's tough and Junior needs him alive, so he'll get better. As for Carter, her throat's closed over, that's why she's not getting enough oxygen, that's why her lips are blue. But we can fix it." He reached into his jacket pocket, fumbling for that knife he'd been unable to reach with those Jaffa holding his arms. He held it up, the blade glinting dully in the torchlight. "And now I know why we needed this."

As a lion guard crashed against them Daniel hit out at the man savagely. "Get off me…!" He elbowed him away and a second later they both heard the crunch of club hitting skull. Daniel flinched and turned his head away.

O'Neill tightened his grip on him. "It's okay, Daniel."

Daniel swallowed hard. "No, it's not, Jack."

"No, you're right, it's not, but it's going to be." He remembered promising Charlie that. Believing he could deliver too. Until one day something came along you couldn't fix for them; something you couldn't make right. If Daniel had been raped by that guy, let alone raped by that guy in front of a temple full of people, there was no way in hell he could ever make that right for him. But he was still going to give it his best shot.

As they reached the alcove where Harun was watching over Teal'c and Carter, he saw that they were positioned under a burning torch, which was good because he was going to need the brightest light he could get. Teal'c looked like shit, and Carter looked…dead, limp and grey-blue, only her hair had any color left. "Hey, Teal'c, buddy," he said it gently, seeing the distress in his eyes. "You hanging in there?"

"Major Carter is…"

"I know." He sank down next to Carter, felt for the pulse at her neck then ran a hand over her mouth. "Okay, I can see some chest movement but she definitely needs a little help here. Carter?" He patted her cheek lightly, then a little harder, snapping her name out harshly: "Carter!"

Her eyelids flickered, and he saw a shock of blue. She gasped, chest heaving as she struggled for air.

"Keep breathing," he told her firmly. "We're going to get you a better airway. Just keep breathing in and out."

He glanced up at Daniel who had his arms wrapped round himself, still shivering violently. He didn't look any better in a good light. His pants had been ripped half off, his t-shirt was hanging in tatters, he had a black eye, a split lip, bruises on both cheekbones, and a livid red mark on his jaw. He looked like an identikit picture of a rape victim. O'Neill gritted his teeth. He had three team members who looked half or three-quarters dead, and he so wanted the people who'd done this to them to pay, but right now he had to reclaim his 2IC from the dead. Then he could think about payback. "Okay, Daniel, we need to get her an airway, so you sit down here – " he patted the floor encouragingly. "And you hold her head in your lap. You have to keep it still. Understood?"

Daniel sat down, still shuddering violently, although he seemed unaware of it, looking at his own hands in surprise when they were shaking too much to reach out for Carter.

"It's going to be okay, Daniel," O'Neill said as he eased Carter from Teal'c's grip and slid her across, depositing her head in the younger man's lap, taking Daniel's shaking hands in his and placing them each side of her head. He gave him an encouraging smile. "You're going to be fine. We can do this. Okay?"

Daniel nodded. "Okay."

Great. Good boy, hang in there; we're going to get through this.Except Daniel was still shaking, which meant Carter was too. She was vibrating on Daniel's lap where the tremors were going straight through him to her. It would be like trying to thread a needle in a moving vehicle.

O'Neill licked his lips. "Actually you don't need to hold her head, Daniel, just talk to her. Tell her she's going to be fine. Tell her we're going home soon."

O'Neill hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt. They had to do this because otherwise Carter was dead and he wasn't ready to lose a team member. Not this team. Not any of them. So he could do this. He'd done it before. He could do it again. On Netu everyone else had worked the magic, this time Teal'c was almost dead, Carter probably was technically dead, and Daniel was so deeply in shock he needed three warm blankets and a really big sedative. This time they all needed their CO to pull the white rabbit out of the hat. He owed them. Time to deliver.

He saw Carter gasp for air and then gasp again. No way of telling if any oxygen was getting through. The way the panic flared in her blue eyes suggested it probably wasn't. She grabbed for Daniel's hand and held onto it, their fingers interlacing tightly. But she was still conscious; still aware. That was something.

O'Neill looked at Daniel's bled-white bruised face, blue eyes huge with anxiety, then down at the knife in his hand, Carter's exposed neck, the incision he was about to make. He cleared his throat. "Daniel, why don’t you tell Harun and Carter about the dead people on the other side of the planet, and the way we got out of that hell place. Remember?"

Daniel blinked at him in surprise, then dawning realization. "Oh…right."

And thank God he seemed to have pressed the right button again. Daniel was talking, good, covering fire, what he needed, that soothing Radio Jackson he liked to have playing in any room he was in even if he didn't listen to most of the words.

Taking a deep breath, O'Neill leant over Carter, felt for the notch where her collarbone met and then positioned the knife above it. He could do this, he really could.  And if he didn't, Carter was dead. Gritting his teeth, O'Neill said huskily, "Sorry, Carter," then made the first slice at the base of her throat, an inch was enough, and thank god the blade was sharp; a scalpel would have been better but this was still pretty good.

By the way Daniel stopped talking as the blood oozed out from beneath his blade, he knew he'd seen it, but there was only a fractional pause before Daniel went on, trying to speak calmly and quietly, to pass on the information Harun had to have if they were ever to get to this point.

He stole a glance at those interlaced fingers. Daniel was still hanging onto Carter's hand, but Carter's fingers were limp. When he darted a look at her face, her eyes were closed. She'd either stopped breathing completely or else passed out from the combination of being oxygen starved and having a knife stuck in her.

No time to waste. O'Neill swallowed hard and made a second slice, the fat layer this time. You wouldn't think someone as slim as Carter would have this much fat between her neck and her cartilage, Sanchez had only had…No point thinking about Sanchez now. You learned from your mistakes, right? Medical students practiced their surgery on cadavers and Black Ops teams practiced their surgery on each other. Okay, three slices, God but this would be so much easier with a scalpel; he was having to push so damned hard…okay, he was looking for the white rings which would tell him he'd reached cartilage. Of course in the diagrams they never showed you the blood seeping out, glistening on your knife blade, running down the pale skin of your living friend, the one you were slicing into without an anesthetic. The one you could kill with a slip of your fingers; the one who would die if you didn't keep doing this despite the blood, despite the fear, despite the fact you'd always been told you cut the throats of enemies, not friends.

There was the cartilage; white rings of it, glistening palely from under a film of blood. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes, trying to get the blade in between so he wouldn't have to cut through it, trying to do as little damage as possible.

He became aware of a comforting pressure on his back: Teal'c's hand offering him support and reassurance. Daniel was telling Harun about the pictures on the walls. Oh yes, they'd been funny a couple of hours ago. Him and Daniel getting naked and gymnastic together, something he could use for leverage: Come fishing with me, Dannyboy, or I'll tell Teal'c and Carter about that 'cuneiform' you translated. He should have left Daniel there. Should have left him with the four hundred year old erotica. Gone back for him later. He'd let that son-of-a-bitch rape his friend. God, he should have fought harder, got free somehow; his bare hands were supposed to be lethal weapons; so how come he'd let that happen? How come he'd let that be done to Daniel right in front of him?

"Jack…?"

He looked up to find Daniel gazing at him anxiously, and realized he'd frozen. He gazed back down at the blood trickling from Carter's throat, her collarbone was acting like a sill, funneling it off to the sides, but a trickle was getting through to run down her breastbone. He swallowed hard, and then pushed the knife through the narrow space between the rings of cartilage, feeling the hard-softness of it give, yielding and firm at the same time. Salmon from the can, picking out the white pieces of spine so Charlie wouldn't choke on them…Don't think about that now. Hang in there, Carter, don't even think about dying on me. Keep your damned heart beating until I can get you some more air or I swear to god I'll bust you down to second lieutenant…The cartilage closed over his blade, helping to hold it in place. He tried not to let his fingers tremble even though they really wanted to, fumbling for a pen with his left hand as he did so.

"Here." The fingers that held it were visibly shaking but it was exactly what he needed. A ballpoint casing with the inside stripped out to give him a clear tube, already bent a little in readiness. He wondered if Daniel had done this before as well. With his hands shaking like that it wouldn't matter if Daniel had done fifty tracheotomies before, of course, he certainly couldn't do this one, but it wouldn't surprise him if he had done some impromptu surgery in his time. Daniel had done a hell of a lot of things he probably didn't know about.

He didn't look up at Daniel. "Thanks."

"I couldn't find anything wider. It needs to be wide, right?"

"It'll do, Daniel. It's an airway. That's all she needs."

He remembered this being the tough part with Sanchez, trying to get the damned tube in there. This time he was leaving the knife in so he could lever the cartilage apart. But how come they didn't give you any retractors when they were packing your gear anyway? From now on he wanted a scalpel, retractors, a tracheotomy tube, and a goddamned bottle of whisky put in every team's pack. He wiggled the pen casing in through the incision – Christ, doctors did this kind of thing all the time? Those guys must have iron stomachs was all he could say – blood coating his fingers and the pen casing, a red slick which left crimson copies of his fingerprints on Carter's pale throat. He remembered Evans breathing down his neck last time, telling him he had to use a rotating motion to get the tube in until he'd told Evans to go and rotate on a goddamned fencepost while he figured this out. This time he tried turning it, and wiggling it from side to side, his fingers were too big for this kind of thing. Where the hell was Fraiser when he needed her? Then there was the cartilage; he could only use the flat of the blade to try to prize the rings apart or he'd cut straight through them. Right, there was a gap, he could feel it, felt it 'pop' as he punched through. Now he had to manipulate the pen casing in sideways, wish the bastard would bend some more. But that was it. It was in. There was a tube to Carter's windpipe, giving her an airway. He just hoped he'd got there in time.

For the first time he let himself see the whole picture, not just the incision he'd made, not just an area a few inches square around the wound he'd made in Carter's neck. He'd almost managed to forget this was Carter, but there she unmistakably was, skin ghost-grey, lashes stark black against that deathly pallor, lips blue, not a trace of pink to be seen, a bloody hole in the base of her neck and the plastic hollow tube of a ballpoint pen jutting out. He pushed back her upper lip to look at her gums and winced when he saw there was no pink there either. How long had he taken? How long had she been out? Had she ever stopped breathing completely, or had there always been some air getting through? Five minutes was brain death, right? How long had it taken to get the tube in? It had felt like an hour but it could have been as little as two minutes. Her heart was still beating but was her brain still working? Had he brought her back to be a vegetable? Had he even brought her back at all?

"I need some tape." He held the pen in place and looked up, surprised to see a backdrop of battle still going on behind Daniel. He hadn't even heard it while he'd been working on Carter. Incredible what you could tune out when you wanted to. That probably explained how Daniel had gone four years without learning what rank came between a colonel and a general, or that the other name for 'those explosive thingies' was 'Claymore'. He glanced at Harun. "We had a roll of it in our packs. Tape. Silvery sticky stuff…?" Harun nodded, propped the staff weapon he carried up beside Teal'c, touched him gently on the shoulder, then moved away at a run.

O'Neill looked across at Daniel who was stroking Carter's hair. "You okay?"

Daniel met his gaze. "Are you?"

O'Neill shrugged. "I've been better."

"Me too." Daniel craned his neck to see past O'Neill. "Teal'c, are you still with us?"

"You'd better be." O'Neill jerked his head round to see. "Everyone goes home from this trip. Is that understood?"

He saw Teal'c give him a slow nod, the glimmer of a smile. "Is Major Carter - ?"

"She's going to be fine, Teal'c." Daniel said it with determination. Where the hell had he learned to lie like that? As O'Neill caught Daniel's eye he read the expression, a mixture of stubbornness and pleading. Make it be true. Doing my best, Daniel, doing my best…

He looked back down at Carter but she didn't look any better. Her lips were still blue. She ought to be starting to pink up by now, didn't she?

Okay, what had he done wrong last time? He'd asked, and at first the medic guy had given him the usual guff; he hadn’t done anything 'wrong', it was just one of the ops where sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't; Sanchez had been suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, yadda, yadda, yadda. Christ, there had been something, something else you could do to stop them winding up in a bodybag…

"ABC of resuscitation," he muttered it aloud, wishing he'd had a refresher course before this mission. "Okay, I know this: A is for airway, B is for breathing, C is for circulation…So, I've got her an airway, now I need to breathe for her."

That was it. You blew into the tube to get the air moving or something. Couldn't remember now exactly what it did, but it got the good things happening faster. He could do that.

Bending his head, O'Neill blew hard into the tube. The same power you needed to blow up a balloon, that was what Fraiser said. And, yes, there was chest movement; he could see it out of the corner of his eye. Come on, pick up the pace, Major, and report for duty, right now.

"Won't that get germs into her bloodstream?"

O'Neill would have smiled if he hadn't been blowing into the plastic casing of a pen. Daniel was arguing again. That had to be a good sign. He blew again then nodded to Daniel. "That's what antibiotics are for. Hold the pen in place a second." As Daniel did so, he reached down and squeezed her ribcage rhythmically, that was supposed to help too, and hell, right now he was willing to try anything. If someone had told him hanging upside down from the rafters while singing "The Star Spangled Banner" would have got them Carter back he would have gone for it at the moment.

"O'Neill!"

Teal'c's warning had him reacting before he'd even recognized the sound of his name: grabbing Daniel and pulling him down over Carter before shielding them both with his body. He felt the blast from the staff weapon damned near part his hair and then a second bolt went over his head. He twisted round, scared of what he might see. "Teal'c…?"

The Jaffa let the staff weapon slip from his fingers, his shoulder smoking from the blast it had just taken. "I am still alive, O'Neill."

Daniel looked at the dead lion guard Teal'c had just dispatched and then turned back to their teammate. "Oh God. Teal'c…?"

"Shit!" O'Neill cast around for their medical kit. "What is this? Kill my freakin' team day?" He pulled off his jacket, yanked his t-shirt over his head, then wrapped it around Teal'c's shoulder, pulling it tight. He touched the Jaffa's cheek. "No one dies today unless they have a note from their mother to say they're excused, you got that?"

"Our mothers are dead. We can't get notes." Daniel was stroking Carter's hair again, visibly willing her to wake up. O'Neill figured that was probably doing as much good as all his breathing into tubes and squeezing her ribcage.

O'Neill held the Jaffa's pain-filled gaze as he tied off the makeshift bandage. "Well then neither of you is allowed to skip class." He added quietly, "And that goes for you too."

Teal'c found him a weary smile. "Understood."

O'Neill turned around and squeezed Carter's ribs again gently, then leant forward to blow into the tube a couple more times. The grey look was going from her lips now, being replaced by definite signs of pink. Some oxygen was getting through again. But had he caught it in time, or was he bringing her back to be a cabbage, that brilliant mind lost forever?

O'Neill pulled his jacket back on, a cold breeze tickling his chest hair. He glanced across at Daniel and saw how smooth his chest was by comparison. There was a lot of it on display through the unbuttoned jacket and the rips in his t-shirt. "That son-of-a-bitch Jaffa is so dead."

He hadn't realized he'd said it aloud until Daniel blinked up at him in surprise, still holding the pen in place with one hand and stroking Carter's hair with the other. "Jack…?"

O'Neill indicated the human wreckage that had been a fit, healthy, fighting unit a couple of days earlier. "No one does this to my team and gets away with it. Onuris is dead. His bitch-mate is dead. And that bastard…Tailgate is deader than tie-dye."

Daniel found him a glimmer of a smile from somewhere. "Wonder if that's in the prophecy?"

O'Neill dredged up a smile of his own. "Well, just as long as the next sentence is 'And lo, verily it came to pass' they can go right ahead and quote me."

"Well Tel'muk is very, very dead, Jack, so that part is certainly true."

O'Neill looked up in surprise. He hadn't realized the guy was dead. "Did you…?"

Daniel shook his head. "No. The…people killed him. Very thoroughly."

He looked at Daniel's expression and grimaced. "You okay?"

"Much blood has been spilt here."

O'Neill jumped as Harun reappeared, carrying one of their packs. He looked up at the grave-faced man and nodded. "I know. Some of it's ours. Did you bring a gun?"

Harun gazed at him intently. "So you can shed more blood?"

"Some blood needs to be spilt."

"It is written that the avatars of the Chosen One spilt no more blood in the temple of the False God."

"Well luckily I'm not an avatar of the Chosen One, I'm just a really pissed off Air Force colonel with a grudge." O'Neill held out a hand. "Gun?"

Harun handed him a roll of tape. "This is what you asked for."

Swallowing the bad words he wanted to say, O'Neill took it from him, tearing off a strip with his teeth. As Daniel held the tube steady, he looped the tape around the tube and then stuck it to Carter's neck; making sure he had a good length of tape but not enough to wind it all the way around her throat. The last thing Carter needed was something else interfering with her air supply. He tore off another strip and repeated the maneuver, sticking it to the other side of her neck for stability. The pinkness was unmistakable now. She was actually looking like Carter again, albeit an unconscious Carter with two pieces of adhesive tape holding a piece of tubing sticking out of her neck. But her lips were pink, and when he checked inside her mouth, so were her gums.

"Is Sam going to be okay?" Daniel murmured it to him quietly, clearly not wanting Teal'c to hear.

"She'd damned well better be." O'Neill wasn't considering the alternatives. He looked over his shoulder to where Harun was tending to Teal'c, using bandages and antiseptic a little awkwardly but with determination. Harun was talking quietly to the Jaffa, the two of them clearly communicating on some level he and Harun were never going to achieve. He glanced back to see how Carter and Daniel were doing and was reminded again that behind them the battle was still going on. There wasn't enough room for the lion guards to use their staff weapons, although shots were still being discharged, they were lousy weapons for hand to hand, and most of the blasts were hitting what remained of the ceiling. The three priests were watching from an alcove. The two lesser priests looked frightened. The High Priest was simply watchful. He was still holding the zatgun, O'Neill noticed. He wondered if it was worth going over there and taking it from him. Onuris and Mehit had retreated to the shadows and were watching with wary disdain. Their exit was blocked and the space beneath the ring mechanism was in the thick of the battle, or O'Neill figured they would probably have made a run for it by now.

O'Neill coughed as the scents of smoke, blood, and burning flesh caught at the back of his throat. When he glanced down at Carter to check on her progress she was gazing up at him in confusion. He stared at her in disbelief. "Carter…? You back with us?"

He and Daniel both bent forward at the same time, each of them trying to get a look at her face. The skull clash was painful and elicited a yelp from Daniel. "Damnit, Daniel…" He muttered it resignedly, rubbing his head. He felt a reproachful look glimmer off his cheekbone and felt a spasm of relief at that glimpse of normality.

He realized Carter was trying to say something but no sound was coming out. He waved a hand at her. "Don't try to speak. Just nod if you understand what I'm saying to you."

She nodded. Her eyes looked very large and shocked, her fingers groping across her bloodstained neck until they found the end of the tube. She held her finger over the end, pointing at her throat, and mouthed the word: "You?"

"Yes. Me. Cut that out." He covered her hand with his, gently but firmly moving it away from the pen casing. "No trying to talk, Carter, that's an order. And do not touch my handiwork."

Daniel lent over her and O'Neill just pulled his head out of the way in time. Daniel spoke rapidly but soothingly, "Sam, you've got diphtheria. Your throat closed over which is why Jack had to do a tracheotomy, and why you can't speak. We need to get you back to the infirmary so Janet can give you the anti-toxin."

She mouthed the word anxiously: Teal'c?

Daniel darted an anxious glance over O'Neill's shoulder. "He's hurt but we think he's going to be okay."

She reached up and touched Daniel's ripped t-shirt, eyes anxious, opening her mouth to ask questions O'Neill didn't even wanted mouthed right now.

"What did I tell you about talking?" O'Neill said quickly. "Daniel, let's get her over with Teal'c, then Harun can look after them while you and I…you know." He jerked his head in the direction of the two Goa'uld watching the battle from the security of their personal shields.

Daniel gave a quick nod of comprehension and then smiled down at Carter as he took hold of her under the arms, leaving O'Neill to get her booted feet. O'Neill was relieved to see Daniel's hands weren't anything like as shaky as they picked Carter up between them and carried her the couple of paces necessary to set her down next to Teal'c.

"Major Carter…"

The way she reached out for Teal'c's hand and he immediately clasped it in his, told him that he and Daniel weren't the only ones who'd been doing some bonding in adversity.

Harun smiled down at them as he rewrapped O'Neill's bloodstained t-shirt as an extra bandage around Teal'c's damaged shoulder. He looked happy enough to start crying any minute. "This was not written."

"Most things aren't," O'Neill reminded him. "Mostly stuff just happens." O'Neill didn't know if it was his imagination or if Teal'c really was looking stronger with each passing second he realized Carter was going to make it. Except she wasn't going to make it unless he could get her back through the Stargate and into the infirmary. Which meant getting the damned Goa'uld to open up the Stargate.

"We need one of our GDOs." He spoke in a rapid undertone to Harun while jerking a thumb at the pack. "There should be one with the rest of our gear. Get Carter to nod when you find the right thing. And don't tell me it's not written, just do it."

Harun met his gaze. "We have lived with this prophecy for a long time. Even I, who came here by accident, have lived with it for many years. It is not easy for us to let it go."

O'Neill dragged his gaze away from Carter and looked at Daniel. He knew that look. Daniel was about to tell Harun all kinds of things he shouldn't. O'Neill nodded at Teal'c and Carter, touching Harun briefly on the shoulder. "Look after them, will you?" Then he took Daniel firmly by the elbow and pulled him away.

"Jack…"

"No."

"Can't we just…?"

"No." O'Neill met Daniel's troubled blue gaze sternly. "No, Daniel. We can't. Harun doesn't go back in time, everything gets screwed up. It's already written. It's already happened. It just hasn't happened yet."

"But he helped us. We owe him."

O'Neill pulled Daniel out of the way of a lion guard who was battling with two villagers, yanking him behind a pillar. "You heard the man, he's lived with this damned prophecy for a long time. Well soon he's going to realize that he was always the prophet. He's the guy who began it all. He's the guy in the holy tablet. He's Judas Iscariot, the Ten Commandments, and Moses all wrapped up in one. He's somebody, Daniel."

"We're all somebody." Daniel said it fiercely. "All of these people are somebody. All of these people who are dying all around us, incidentally. Why aren't we helping them?"

"Because it isn't our fight." He grabbed Daniel by the arm and pulled him out of the way of another dangerous-looking scuffle, shoved him into another alcove, and met his gaze. "It's their fight. That's the whole point. We don't deliver them from the false god. They save us and in saving us they deliver themselves. Our function in this story is to be the damsel in distress tied to the railroad track." He held out an arm, encompassing the bloody confusion of the battle. "Today they all get to be heroes."

"And some of them get to be dead." Daniel wrapped his arms around himself.

"That's what generally happens in battles," he said evenly, holding Daniel's gaze.

Daniel swallowed, glancing around at the mayhem. "Okay, so if we're not helping these people, what are we doing?"

"We're getting Onuris and his snake-bitch queen to switch off whatever it is that's stopping the DHD from working."

He followed Daniel's darted glance to where the two were watching the battle, their gorgeous clothes and kohled eyes an eerie contrast to the drab and mud-spattered robes of the natives currently engaged in the destruction of their Jaffa. Onuris and Mehit looked watchful but not yet frightened. O'Neill had to hand it to them; the Goa'uld certainly didn't scare easily. Their lion guards were getting slaughtered all around them but those two were still haughty, still confident.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "They don't look very co-operative to me."

O'Neill held up the knife he'd used to do the operation on Carter as he led the way towards their corner of the temple. "I'm hoping this might persuade them."

"They have hand devices which can knock us both across the temple." Daniel fell into step behind him nonetheless.

"But they can't use them unless they switch off their personal shields. I get Onuris in the hand with this and – "

"And then Mehit blasts you across the temple with her hand device." Daniel darted a glance at him. "No, wait. I get the rest of the plan: As she lowers her defense shield, I jump her, grabbing her wrist, then she throws me into the nearest pillar, and then she blasts you across the temple with her hand device."

"They're not that much stronger than us." O'Neill said it with as much conviction as he could muster, which unfortunately wasn't much.

"Yes, they are." Daniel gave him a bleak smile. "Take it from someone who went ten rounds with Hathor, and lost."

Remembering the trashed room, and all those unmentionable bruises he'd noticed on Daniel's body in the showers, O'Neill winced. "Okay. Then we go get the zatgun from Torquemada and – "

"Rahotep."

"Whatever. Either way we grab it and then improvise." He had his mouth open to start giving Daniel detailed instructions on how they were going to do this when his 'imminent death' radar started bleeping like an outraged car alarm. There was barely time to grab Daniel and throw them both to the ground.

He swore he felt the staff weapon blast singe his hair on its way past. The next second he was squeezing his eyes closed as the blast hit the pillar right in front of them. He covered Daniel with his body, arms over his own head as debris and stone chippings spattered down on them like vicious hail. As the dust cleared a little, he ducked his head to try to get a look at Daniel's face. The younger man's eyes were closed and he was very still. "Daniel…?"

He shook him. "Daniel?"

When there was no response he ran a hand through his hair gently, rubbing Daniel's cheek with his thumb. "Danny? Come on, it was just a little bang on the head. You're Rubber Boy, remember? You can bounce back from anything. Daniel?"

The wail tore through the temple eerily.

"Tew Setepen! Tew Setepen!"

More wails followed and he could guess what they meant all too easily: the Chosen One was dead. Except he wasn't. No way in hell was Daniel going to be dead. O'Neill reached for his neck and felt a pulse. He tilted Daniel's head up and saw a trace of blood in his hair. A chipping from the pillar had obviously furrowed a line along his scalp. He followed the blood trail and found the cut, relief surging through him as he realized it wasn't too deep. Daniel was knocked out for a few minutes, that was all. O'Neill looked up to tell the wailing multitudes that their Chosen One was going to be fine, really, and was reminded again that SG-1 were just catalysts here. The lion guard who'd fired on them was being bludgeoned to death a few feet away by a crowd of true believers, and the others were moving towards Mehit and Onuris with what was unmistakably murder in their eyes.

"We need those guys alive!" O'Neill yelled. "We need to be able to use the Stargate. They're the only ones who know how to – "

No one was listening to him. He might be cunning as the wolf that hunted in winter and right hand man to their Deliverer but he was also a guy saying things they really didn't want to hear in a language they didn't understand. They were going to kill the false gods who had murdered their true god, and the fact Daniel wasn't their god, or dead, wasn't even going to slow them up.

Swearing, O'Neill got to his feet, caught Daniel under the arms and dragged him into the corner. They were about five alcoves up from Teal'c and Carter who were hopefully well out of the way of a crowd that was now flowing past this little oasis of safety like a river that had burst its banks.

"This sucks," he muttered. He grabbed a staff weapon that was kicked their way by the stampeding believers, pulling it up one handed. Wedging himself in the corner, he got Daniel positioned comfortably against him, Daniel's head lolling against his bare chest. He waved the dust aside impatiently and peered from behind the pillar. He and Daniel had a ringside seat for the last act if nothing else; it was just a pity Daniel wasn't awake to watch the show.

Onuris and Mehit were cornered, faces contorted with rage. There had been lion guards forming a wall between them and the multitudes, but those Jaffa were being remorselessly bludgeoned and dragged down. Soon the Goa'uld were only going to have their personal shields and their hand devices between them and about two hundred fifty angry locals.

"Daniel…" O'Neill whispered it in his ear. "Wake up. Wake up and prove you're alive before Onuris gets killed and we're stuck on this freakin' shithole of a planet for the rest of our natural lives. Daniel…"

Two of the natives were thrown past at a height of about ten feet where the Goa'uld had obviously used their hand devices to blast them away. That meant they'd lowered their defense shields. Onuris and Mehit would only do that if they were desperate. O'Neill craned his neck to look behind the pillar and saw the Goa'uld hitting local after local with their hand devices, golden blasts of light flaring from their palms, their faces intent. But there were hundreds of people pressing in on them and if Goa'uld could sweat he reckoned those two were sweating. This was a last stand, and he didn't think they were going to make it.

Daniel nestled against his chest, like a child settling down for the night. O'Neill ran a hand through Daniel's hair automatically. "Okay, don't wake up. Lie there and take a little nap. No, really, it's fine. This place is growing on me anyway. A few more years I'm sure they'll get cable."

Daniel sighed against his bare skin, burrowing against his chest hair like it was a comforter. He guessed Daniel's subconscious had decided that Daniel had been through enough today and was closing everything down for a little while. From the point of view of saving Daniel's sanity, it was probably a good idea. From the point of view of them getting off this world, it was probably a disaster.

"Daniel, please wake up…" He hissed it between gritted teeth. "Pretty please with chocolate and whipped cream on top."

"Help us…"

For a frozen second he thought the words were addressed to him and stared across at the Goa'uld in horror. But then he saw Onuris' gaze was riveted on the next alcove to the one he and Daniel were sheltering in. He hadn't even noticed the High Priest standing there so immobile and silent, but now he realized the man was watching from the shadows, still holding the zat gun in his hand. He also realized that this conversation would never be recorded on any sacred tablet because only he and the High Priest would understand it.

Rahotep spoke quietly. "No."

Onuris' gaze flashed gold with fury. "I am your god! I command you to help us!"

"A god does not need the assistance of a priest."

"You are my High Priest. You serve me!"

O'Neill thought Onuris had a point there, quite frankly. Rahotep had spent his whole damned life in the service to this snaky son-of-a-bitch. Now the guy asked for his assistance and he said 'No'? What the hell was that about? He craned his neck to try to see Rahotep's face, but it was unreadable.

Even as Mehit blasted another two people away; as another dozen lion guards were dragged to the floor and bludgeoned only a few feet from her, Rahotep spoke clearly but quietly, his voice cutting through the clamor of battle:

"I serve the one true god, Onuris. Were you he you would cast the unbelievers down. The god I serve needs no help from me."

"I am Onuris!" The Goa'uld roared it furiously.

"Then you have no need of my assistance." There was quiet conviction in Rahotep's voice.

O'Neill couldn't really fault the guy's logic. He guessed that was probably no more than you deserved for going around saying you were omnipotent. Still seemed a little tough though, he had to admit. He whispered urgently in Daniel's ear: "It would be really good idea for you to wake up now, Daniel."

Daniel stirred drowsily and then blinked up at him. He said sleepily, "Hey, Jack…"

"Hey, Daniel." He waited patiently for Daniel to notice something odd about their situation but Daniel showed every sign of going back to sleep again. He seemed to think his C.O. had nothing better to do with his time than to be a nice warm pillow for him.

Daniel closed his eyes. "My head hurts."

"Onuris is about to get stiffed."

"I was dreaming about waffles again."

"That's nice. In the meantime, Onuris and Mehit are about to get torn limb from limb by the outraged multitudes because one of their Jaffa killed you."

"They killed me?" Daniel stared up at him in surprise. "We're dead?"

O'Neill exhaled, mentally counting to ten. "No. We're alive. They just made a mistake. It's probably written somewhere that you died in the temple, so they were ready to get touchy about it. You want to go tell the nice people you're not dead?"

"Okay." Daniel made to get up but then fell back on him again.

"Ow!" O'Neill glared at him. "The second we get home you are so going on a diet, Daniel."

"I command you to help us!"

They both jerked their heads round, almost clashing skulls again as they both tried to peer through the gap between the pillar and the wall. O'Neill shoved Daniel down lower and looked over the top of him. For a second his gaze met that of Onuris and he read desperation in his gold-glowing eyes. Then the Goa'uld was focusing on Rahotep, imperious, insistent: "I am your god, Onuris. I am the one, the only god. You live only to serve me. You will obey me. Help us!"

"You are a false god." Rahotep spoke expressionlessly. "The god I serve is all knowing and all powerful. He needs no help from his priests. You are a blasphemer who has taken his name in vain." Rahotep raised the zatgun and fired.

Mehit's scream of fury was cut off as the blue light enveloped her. She crumpled to the floor, oddly exotic even in defeat. Rahotep aimed the zatgun and fired on her again. With a snarl of fury, Onuris raised his hand, aiming his ribbon device at the priest. The zat blast sizzled through the dusty air, shimmering around the Goa'uld before he could fire. The second burst of blue light followed in a heartbeat.

Daniel and O'Neill gaped at one another in disbelief. Noticing that Daniel looked very dumb with his mouth open, O'Neill hastily closed his own mouth.

The crowd fell back in surprise, releasing the lion guards they were grappling with as Rahotep walked impassively towards the two Goa'uld. He stood over them for a moment, looking around the temple at the expectant faces. Then he aimed the zatgun and fired again. Onuris and Mehit shimmered like a heat haze and then vanished. Rahotep surveyed the astonished people, face unreadable. Then he began to speak in the language of the Goa'uld.

Daniel translated automatically: "'This was not Onuris. Your god has not yet visited you. When he comes he will be all-powerful and all knowing. His strength will be greater than any –' "

"Okay, that's enough. I can guess the rest." O'Neill helped Daniel to his feet, tuning the priest out. Daniel was still staring at the scene with his mouth open. He met O'Neill's gaze. "Do you think he truly believed they were imposters…?"

O'Neill shrugged. "I think he truly believed that a priest with no gods to worship is out of a job. He's keeping the lights on for someone who outranks any other deity on the planet, and, basically, Onuris just failed the audition."

"So nothing's changed." Daniel looked around at the dead; the lion guards and locals scattered around the room, bodies twisted, eyes open but unseeing. "Some of them will still worship Onuris, others will worship…us. Onuris is dead, and we're not gods but it doesn't make any difference. All these people died…for nothing."

"People die for nothing every day, Daniel. It's just that on the whole we don't usually have to watch it happen."

Daniel closed his eyes and waved a hand. "Place is kind of…spinning…"

O'Neill propped Daniel against the wall, darting a glance between the pillars. Rahotep was still talking, the people were still listening; some of them were nodding, others were shaking their heads and shouting protests. It was probably all very cosmic and philosophical but in the meantime he had a ribbon-deviced Jaffa, a diphtheria-ridden major, and a concussed anthropologist to get home and under the care of Janet Fraiser. "Let's try walking, shall we?"

"Okay." Daniel took a wavering pace. "Why is the floor moving?"

O'Neill just grabbed him in time, swearing as Daniel's weight put extra pressure on his leg. He used the staff weapon to lean on while putting his arm around Daniel's waist. They could do this. He would limp Daniel down to the Stargate; then help Teal'c struggle down there, then find someone to assist him with carrying Carter. Then he'd get one of the priests by the throat and make him switch off that damned device. Not a problem. One way or another he was getting his team off this damned world.

"Your friend is not a god."

O'Neill turned to find Rahotep standing there watching them. That guy was definitely creepy and he still had a zatgun in his hand. He wondered if the High Priest was going to make them disappear the way he had the two Goa'uld. "We never said he was."

"The people know that now." Rahotep nodded in satisfaction. "They awaited his coming but when he arrived he was only a man. That is because there is only one god."

Daniel moistened his lips. "You speak English. That means you understood me." He jerked his head in the direction of the inner chambers of the temple and O'Neill felt the shudder go through him. "When you were…questioning me."

"Yes." Rahotep spoke without inflection or apology.

Daniel looked around at the dead and dying and O'Neill automatically tightened his grip on him. Daniel grimaced. "You don't care, do you? Whether people live or die. Whether they suffer or are happy. All you care about is that they continue to believe. Anything that threatens that belief you destroy."

Rahotep faced him unflinchingly. "Without belief they are nothing. They are damned."

O'Neill jabbed a finger at the place where Onuris and Mehit had made their last stand. "You just killed your god, you do know that, right?"

"My god is all powerful. That which I killed was not my god."

O'Neill met his gaze, reading not a hint of doubt. "What if he was? What if your god is exactly what we told you he was? An alien parasite living inside a stolen human body?"

"He is not."

Daniel sighed. "No, he's right, Jack. His god is what he wants him to be, and that isn't what he wants him to be, therefore that isn't what he is. He believes in a deity called Onuris who is all-powerful and all knowing. The creature he just killed was an alien parasite living inside a human host. Therefore he wasn't Onuris."

Rahotep nodded. "Exactly."

Daniel seemed to understand this high priest guy even though O'Neill sure as hell didn't. The young man sighed. "Then we can go? We don't threaten your belief system any more, do we? We're just the means by which you freed yourselves from the false god pretending to be your real god."

"The one who doesn't exist," O'Neill put in.

Daniel grimaced. "The one who can never disappoint you. The one who can never inconveniently show up and be less than omnipotent."

Rahotep stepped forward and lifted a chain from around his neck. A blood red crystal was blinking on the end of it. He pressed it once and the light faded. "You may leave whenever you wish."

O'Neill clenched his fists. "How long have you had that? How long have you been able to switch the DHD back on?"

Rahotep made no reply just gazing at him unblinkingly. The High Priest's morality and belief system were so far removed from his it made no difference that they could both speak English after all. O'Neill realized there could never be any communication between them. "Screw you," O'Neill said quietly. He turned away from him before the urge to punch him on the jaw became overwhelming.

Daniel was murmuring something about the Death Child avenging his father anyway and maybe it wasn't such a bad thing they'd left the doors open. He wondered if Daniel was concussed. He talked as if he was concussed a lot of the time when he wasn't, so it was often a little difficult to tell. Whatever Daniel was saying was clearly pissing off the High Priest guy anyway and as he still had a zatgun in his hand…

"Daniel…"

"I know."

O'Neill looked around the interior of the temple, at the broken statue, the missing section of the roof letting in a torn patch of night sky; the smoking bodies; the dead and the dying. Something had caught on fire outside and dense pale wisps were beginning to blow in on the night breeze to coil into his throat. The air was filled with the sound of recrimination and grief; people were crying over the dead; consoling the wounded. O'Neill set his jaw. "Well I guess our work here is done."

"We can't just leave them," Daniel said it wretchedly.

O'Neill knew how he felt but he'd already accepted that fate was running this particular poker game and someone else was going to end up with the pot. "I think it's probably written somewhere that we do." As Daniel looked as if he might argue, he added quickly, "If Carter doesn't get the anti-toxin fast, she isn't going to make it."

That worked. Daniel was hauling him back towards Carter and Teal'c so fast he could barely keep up with him.

He snatched up another staff weapon on the way. Daniel still had his jacket even if it was looking very much worst for wear from when Tel'muk had…Better not to think about that. Two jackets and two staff weapons made a stretcher. Concentrate on the practicalities of getting his team down to the DHD and off this damned world.

***

Samantha Carter knew she wasn't really floating. She just felt as if she was. She was almost grateful for the disorientation because it muffled the panic of having to breathe through a tube. Which was still a big improvement on not being able to breathe at all. Who would have thought Colonel O'Neill could do surgery…? People outside the services had no idea how that felt. To owe your life to another human being. To know that if it wasn't for him, or him, or her, or him, you would be dead now, cold, insentient.

"Careful with her…" That was Daniel's voice. They had made a makeshift stretcher from his and the Colonel's jackets with two staff weapons pushed through the sleeves. They had lifted her onto it in their own way – very gently in Daniel's case, matter-of-factly in the Colonel's. Even with the air rationed through the plastic casing of a ballpoint pen she'd had a little smile for the Colonel's briskness. He was usually only like that with Daniel; the whole 'I was never worried for an instant' act generally reserved for SG-1's civilian member. If he'd started wearing that mask for her as well he must be getting fond of her too.

As they passed through the double doors, leaving the smoke and chaos of the temple behind, she looked up at Daniel's upside-down face. He looked very anxious. And very bruised. Someone had beaten him up. Presumably the same someone who had ripped his t-shirt to its current shredded state.

She put her finger over the tube, trying to get some sound to come out, even a faint rasp, but there was nothing. She had to mouth it: "Daniel, are you…?"

"No talking." The Colonel's swift response made them both jump as the cold night air cut through them. He didn't even trouble to look round. He was carrying the front end of the makeshift stretcher, still very much the USAF colonel leading his team back to the Stargate despite his heavy limp, bare torso, and the dull bruises marking his back and shoulders. Harun was helping Teal'c, the Jaffa struggling but determined to stay on his feet. He and Colonel O'Neill were both clearly having to fight to stay upright but had that 'never say die' look she recognized only too well. She tilted her head back to snatch another look at Daniel, mouthing the question at him again.

Daniel gave her an apologetic grimace. "I'm fine, Sam." He shivered with the cold and she saw the goose-bumps on his arms. She coughed as some blood got into her throat and red liquid spattered through the end of the tube. When Daniel flinched at the sight, she tried to give him a reassuring smile, but as he still looked ghost-white with anxiety she gathered her reassuring smile needed some more work. The stars seemed far away; the night sky smudged with drifts of what she thought at first were clouds until she realized this was smoke. She turned her head awkwardly and caught sight of huts burning; probably ignited by stray staff weapon blasts; the smoke stinging her eyes. She couldn't be sure but she thought Harun's hut was one of them. She wondered what had happened to the woman with the baby. If it had survived. If it also featured in the prophecy. As they passed a hut that was fully ablaze she saw the looming silhouette of something that looked like an enormous beast. It took her a moment to realize it was a crashed death glider, that its spilled fuel was what was setting the huts on fire. It was strange to see the smoke but not be able to smell it. She realized how much she took her senses for granted. The ability to speak, to smell. Not to mention the ability to breathe in and out without needing a tube taped into her throat.

Daniel looked odd upside down, but she felt cut off from half the methods by which she would have judged how bad it had been, whatever event had left him looking like that. She wanted to ask him how he has; to inhale the scent of his skin through the rips in his t-shirt, and smell not just sweat, but any aftermath of shock and fear. Those were emotions that left a scent on the body like aftershave. But even with only her sight to guide her, it was clear something very bad had either happened or almost happened to him. She could see it as clearly in the rigidity of Colonel O'Neill's back as she could in the bruises on Daniel's skin. Carter still had no idea how Daniel and the Colonel had made it back to the temple; where they'd been sent; what they'd had to do to return in time. She was just very grateful that they had.

She turned her head to look at Teal'c; wincing as she saw how heavily he was leaning on Harun. He needed to meditate so his symbiote could heal him properly. He gave her a weary smile but she could see it was willpower alone keeping him on his feet. No wonder Colonel O'Neill was so pissed. Onuris had basically kicked the crap out of the Colonel's team.

She tilted her head back to look at Daniel again, then darted a look at the Colonel O'Neill. She knew from past experience that the Colonel had very good hearing. She mouthed it at Daniel carefully: Onuris?

He mouthed it back at her: Dead.

Colonel O'Neill?

He shook his head: Rahotep. The High Priest.

She looked at him in disbelief. Daniel raised his eyebrows to show that he was as surprised as she was. She realized he was pretty handicapped on the communication front having to hold her stretcher. The Colonel was always saying the best way to shut Daniel up was to tie his hands behind his back.

She began to mouth the next question: Did you and the Colonel…?

"Don't make me come back there."

Daniel's guilty start sent her sliding three inches down the stretcher. The Colonel hadn't so much as twitched a hair, but he clearly did have eyes in the back of his head. Daniel gave her an apologetic look and she winced back at him in return.

Harun was talking to Teal'c in a voice too low for her to hear. Daniel could probably have picked up the words if he'd listened, but his gaze was fixed on what lay ahead of them. Possibly the back of Colonel O'Neill's head, or the Stargate. With Daniel it could be either.

Daniel said, "Do you think that crystal thingy of Rahotep's actually…?"

"If it didn't I'm just going to keep hitting the DHD until it works." The Colonel didn't even look over his shoulder. "That's SOP, Daniel."

It occurred to Carter that the only bit of the conversation she had understood was the one currently eliciting that blank look from Daniel. She mouthed 'standard operating procedure' at him.

Daniel nodded. "Well, that's very reassuring, Jack. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

As the ground leveled out, she realized they must be very near to the Stargate now. They were reliant on the reflected glow of burning buildings here, that and the starlight the smoke was already veiling. She wondered where Daniel had lost his flashlight. If the people who found it would be able to learn something from it that might advance their technology, or if would just rust somewhere unnoticed.

"I need to carry news of the defeat of the False God to my people."

She was staring straight at Colonel O'Neill's bruised shoulders and she swore he didn't even twitch. Daniel did though. She felt the stretcher jerk underneath her. Heard his murmured apology. When she glanced up at him for an explanation, he was staring fixedly at the back of the Colonel's head, trying to will him into doing something.

She didn't think it was coincidence that the Colonel wouldn't turn around. "Okay, Harun, you go first then. We'll take the next 'gate out of here."

Carter felt a cold prickling sensation down the back of her neck. She had diphtheria and was in urgent need of the anti-toxin. Teal'c was staying upright by sheer willpower. And it looked as if Daniel had been…Well the rigidity of the Colonel's spinal column suggested he had more rage still left to express that could be accounted for even by what had been done to her and Teal'c. But the Colonel was letting Harun go first, just to carry the good news about Onuris to his non-believers? That didn't ring true at all.

She looked to Daniel for an explanation but his gaze was fixed on the Colonel. Still on the back of the Colonel's head to be more precise. She counted ten seconds as Harun propped Teal'c near a boulder, handed him something, then began to walk towards the Stargate. As Daniel opened his mouth in that unmistakable 'Jack' shape, Colonel O'Neill said, "No, Daniel. And you know why."

"But – "

"It's already happened. It has to happen. He went back in time. He drew the damned pictures on the damned walls. We're alive because he already did all that stuff. If he doesn't do it, everything gets screwed up."

Carter tried to twist her head round to look at the Colonel. But as he still had his back to both of them, it didn't help her much. She glanced back at Daniel who was looking utterly wretched but who wasn't saying anything or doing anything to stop Harun. He closed his eyes. "Jack, he might have a family here."

The Colonel still refused to look around. "He might have a family there. He might have met the girl of his dreams and had six kids with her. We'll never know, will we?"

They were following Harun now, Daniel stumbling over the rough ground, the Colonel limping even more heavily. As Harun began to dial, Daniel abruptly called out, "Harun!"

The Colonel spun around so fast he almost overbalanced. Her stretcher tilted alarmingly before he jerked it upright again, but his gaze was fixed on Daniel; shock and fear in his eyes rather than anger. "Daniel…?"

"I have to know he…"

"He knows." Teal'c pushed himself up off the boulder, the GDO clasped in his hand. It was obvious every movement was costing him a great effort, but his face was calm. "Daniel Jackson, Harun knows the identity of the prophet of the Chosen One. I think he has known for some time."

Carter looked across at the figure in his ragged robes standing in front of the DHD. His face was oddly lit by the reflected blaze coming from the hilltop, but she could see determination written all over it. Noticing the way Harun set his jaw as he pressed the last chevron, she realized Teal'c was right. She also realized what Daniel and the Colonel had been talking about.

As the Stargate bathed them all the reflection of its rippling blue light, Harun turned to look at them. He nodded to O'Neill who nodded back. Harun's gaze was gentle as it rested on her and she found a smile to match his, mouthing 'Good luck' and hoping he could lip read what she was saying.

Daniel said quietly, "Harun, do you…?"

The man looked him in the eye. "I know that I need to carry the news of what has happened here to my people."

"But – "

Harun held out his hands to encompass the planet. "These people are my people now." He bowed his head to Teal'c. "Thank you."

Teal'c bowed his head in return, investing the action with that peculiar grace which made a nod from him seem more valuable than a long speech of gratitude from someone else.

Daniel still had his mouth open to make another protest as Harun glanced up at the night sky and then ran swiftly into the gate. For a second he seemed to hesitate; a silhouette against the blue; then the light closed over him and when Carter blinked he was gone. A moment later the gate shut down, leaving them momentarily dazzled by the darkness.

"How could he know when it was the right time to leave?" Daniel automatically turned to her for an explanation, then, on remembering her condition winced apologetically. "Sorry."

It was O'Neill who answered: "Faith."

"What?" Daniel stared at him in confusion and Carter had to hide another smile. Daniel looked so cute when he did that open-mouth thing. Most men just looked dumb. Daniel looked adorable. Although she didn't intend to tell him that any time soon.

O'Neill shrugged. "He's the prophet of the Chosen One, Daniel. And the prophet of the Chosen One was a guy who got sent into the past. Which means any time Harun goes through the gate has to be the right time to send him into the past because he's the prophet and that's what happened. You've really got to learn to start thinking laterally if you're going to get to grips with this self-fulfilling prophecy stuff."

Okay, now she had her mouth open as well.

Teal'c nodded at the Colonel in the manner of a pleased albeit somewhat surprised teacher whose most troublesome pupil had just unexpectedly got a passing grade. "That is correct, O'Neill."

The Colonel looked around at them all defiantly. "Now is that enough talking and can we go home now?"

Daniel shrugged. "You're the colonel, Jack."

"At last, you noticed." Colonel O'Neill nodded to Teal'c. "Can you dial it up, buddy?" He turned around, making her stretcher wobble alarmingly before he grabbed back the handle. Even in the smoky gloom she could see he also had the makings of a spectacular black eye. He looked down at her. "Just hang in there, Carter. Doc Fraiser will have you good as new in no time."

As she automatically attempted to say 'Yes, sir', he raised an eyebrow. "Want to be a Captain again, Major?'

The 'No, sir' played tantalizingly on her tongue before she swallowed it down. But she decided she definitely had a lot of talking to make up for when she had a throat that wasn't swollen closed.

As Teal'c stumbled wearily over to the DHD, Carter took one last look at the hillside. The temple was still looming there, a menacing shadow on the horizon line. She somehow doubted it was calling to Daniel's curiosity now. The flames had obviously taken hold of more huts; the smoke blurring the constellations, while the red glow on the hilltop gave the impression the sun was setting for the second time. It seemed only appropriate that it should now appear to be several hours earlier than when she had been carried into the temple to watch Teal'c all but murdered before her eyes.

Daniel said quietly: " 'The dust of exploded beliefs may make a fine sunset.' Except we didn't even explode any beliefs, did we? Onuris may be dead but those people are exactly where they were when we arrived here. Nothing's changed. We didn't arrive in time to stop the priests sending that boy through the Stargate. That must have happened weeks ago. And in ten years time he'll get into the Goa'uld warehouse whose door Jack and I didn't have time to shut, and he'll find all those Goa'uld weapons. Then he'll come over here, wipe out the priests of Onuris and the followers of the Chosen One and anyone else he blames for his father's death. Hundreds of people will die for no reason. Just the same as they died today for no reason. We weren't the gods they've all been waiting for. We were always irrelevant."

Carter winced in sympathy as she read the look in his eyes. She opened her mouth to tell him that they had all done only what it had been written they would do; pawns in the chess game of a temporal paradox. That it wasn't their fault. Then remembered speaking was an impossibility and closed it again.

As they were bathed in blue light once more, she heard the Colonel speak again, using the kind of tone that would have been accompanied by a pat on the shoulder if he and Daniel hadn't been a staff weapon's length apart. "Let's go home, Daniel."

Daniel took one last look at the hillside and then nodded. As they walked towards the Stargate he said, "Of course, we don't know if we get home safely because that's the one thing Harun wouldn't know either. For all we know we get pushed off course by a solar flare as well and end up – "

"Daniel." The Colonel seemed to be talking with great care and precision. "Let's go home…silently. In fact, why don't you lead the way?"

There was a pause before Daniel said, "We can do that."

As they pinwheeled slowly so that Daniel was the one going backwards towards the Stargate, they were still agreeing on how quiet Daniel could be. "Silence is fine with me."

"Good."

"Not a problem."

"Excellent."

Carter watched Teal'c stumble into the event horizon, then Daniel was leading the way into the shimmering blue circle. He was still telling Colonel O'Neill how silently they could go home as he stepped into the light.

***

Epilogue

O'Neill looked around the isolation ward with dislike. No pictures on the walls. Nothing interesting to read. No windows, of course. In the next room, Carter and Teal'c would be enjoying the same total lack of a view, although he suspected Cassandra had probably sent some pictures which Carter would be able to see from her bed. Cassandra's pictures were fairly sophisticated things these days but O'Neill had a lingering soft spot for the early ones. Apparently she was working on something special for him, but it wasn't finished yet.

He tried to listen when Fraiser was giving him the medical info, especially when it concerned a member of his team upon whom he had been forced to perform impromptu emergency surgery, but there were days when he really wished she'd give him the short version. Still, once he'd disentangled the information from the medical-speak, he gathered he hadn't done Carter any lasting harm by sticking that knife in her throat. Fraiser had replaced his pen casing with some fancy kind of trach that let the patient talk, but had promised that it would all come out as soon as the inflammation in Carter's throat was reversed. He hadn't got everything Fraiser had said because she always talked too fast when she'd had a bad scare, and he gathered that her first sight of Carter and Teal'c looking three-quarters dead had probably qualified as a very bad scare, but she seemed to have cleared out the membrane, got the antitoxin into Carter's system, then put her on an Erythromycin IV in the kind of time it usually took to knock a hockey puck through the back of the net. Carter was now apparently recovering well. Teal'c was the one giving concern. O'Neill was pretty sure Doc Fraiser was holding out on him on just how bad Teal'c was but at least he could hear for himself that Carter's 'speaking trach' was living up to its name.

O'Neill couldn't hear exactly what the two of them were saying, but he'd get the murmur of it often enough; the bass of Teal'c's few comments counter-pointing the raspy rapid fire of Carter. She sounded a little unlike herself but was still recognizably Carter. Fraiser had told him the trach had a valve thing that opened and closed to let Carter speak without her having to put her finger over the hole, but he hoped the manufacturers had made allowances for just how much talking this particular diphtheria patient wanted to do because as far as he could tell she never shut up. She might have had to go a whole twelve hours without being able to talk but she was certainly making up for it now. Apparently she thought temporal paradoxes were fascinating. That was a weird thing about scientists: complete inability to learn from their own data. Anyone who had been on their last mission who wasn't a scientist knew that what temporal paradoxes were was a major pain in the ass. He might not have a PhD in theoretical astrophysics but he'd worked that one out in no time. Carter, apparently, still had some catching up to do.

Carter and Teal'c had insisted on sharing a room. Apparently they'd got pretty agitated when Fraiser had gone to separate them and she'd relented at once. They'd obviously experienced something when Carter was dying which they needed to work through. Or maybe they'd both come so close to losing each other they just needed a little more proof they really had survived this one. They'd get over it. He'd gone through twitchy times with various teammates himself in the past. It faded after a while. Then the next crisis happened and you had nightmares about someone else. Then that one faded. Then another teammate would get himself or herself half-killed, or half-Goa'ulded, or lost, or stolen, or apparently wholly killed, and you were back to the nightmare you'd first thought of. For the moment Teal'c and Carter were just feeling a little anxious. Unlike Daniel and himself, of course, who were models of well adjustment.

Glancing across to see if Daniel was okay was so instinctive he'd done it before he could stop himself. Well, okay, perhaps they were a bit over-anxious themselves, but at least he and Daniel didn't have their beds side by side, the way Carter and Teal'c apparently did. They weren't that sappy. Their beds were opposite one another: a much less twitchy formation.

Looking past his own long grey-cotton clad legs and bare feet, O'Neill could see a Daniel Jackson in blue pajamas, propped up on the pillows, reading a book that was a little large for comfort. The combination of that oversized volume, Daniel's pjs being two sizes too big for him, his hair still sticking up a little as it dried off from his morning shower, and the pink vulnerability of the soles of his too-clean feet, made Daniel look like a child.

Unfortunately the bruises across Daniel's face made him look like a battered child, and every time O'Neill caught a glimpse of his friend's face he found himself wincing.

The bruises weren't quite as spectacular as his own black eye, but they were still noticeable. Every time O'Neill saw them – which was every time he looked at Daniel – he thought about that conversation they were going to have to hold at some point. It wasn't easy sharing a two-bed isolation ward with your best friend when there were so many subjects neither of you wanted to talk about, which was why, after almost three days in their ward, the matter of what had been done to Daniel in that temple still remained resolutely undiscussed.

O'Neill actually thought it was totally unfair that he and Daniel were stuck in the infirmary when they only had cuts and bruises, and in his case a half-healed burn. But apparently the diphtheria germs he and Daniel might have been carrying had made them too dangerous to be transferred to the Air Force hospital. All the other SGC patients had been transferred to the hospital so they couldn't be infected by the plague bearers that were SG-1. Fraiser kept telling him not to take it personally, but it was difficult not to feel like a leper when everyone who approached you was dressed like Dustin Hoffman in 'Outbreak'.

"That was a damned stupid film," he said aloud.

Daniel looked over the top of the book he was reading and sighed. "What now?"

"The monkey did it? Come on, that was dumb when Poe had it in the murders of the Rue whatsit. And Kevin Spacey dies in it. He was the only good thing in it. Well, the monkey was okay. The dogs weren't too bad, and the guy who flew the helicopter – "

Daniel was wearing his most annoying blank expression. "Are you getting a temperature?"

O'Neill darted him a look of irritation. "No."

Daniel seemed to think that meant he could go back to reading his book, thereby completely failing to get the benefit of a perfectly good glare O'Neill had just sent in his direction.

O'Neill still couldn't tell if Daniel was genuinely enjoying some boring book about dead people, or if he was just trying to avoid talking about…the event they hadn't talked about.

Their room had plastic sheeting and UV lighting which people coming in had to pass through. More importantly it had a bathroom and a TV set. He'd complained about the lack of a vending machine but Fraiser hadn't even heard him. In fact Fraiser had been so worried about Carter and Teal'c when they'd all staggered back though the gate, she'd barely fussed over his leg. They'd been whisked off to their respective isolation wards at double speed. Then, while an orderly shrouded in more clothing than an astronaut had come and dressed O'Neill's leg wound, Daniel had slipped off to the shower. He'd come out ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel, with his hair all damp and tousled, and climbed straight into bed. Then he'd slept. And slept. And slept.

In the end, O'Neill had found himself doing something he hadn't since Charlie was a baby, and sneaking over there to see if he was breathing. Daniel had slept for twenty hours straight while O'Neill hadn't been able to sleep for more than thirty minutes at a time. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Carter with her lips blue; Teal'c looking so close to dead he really thought he'd lost him this time; or Daniel with that Tel'muk tearing at his clothing, pleading with O'Neill not to look. The whole team that were his responsibility fucked up every which way while he'd done nothing to stop it.

Fraiser did come in to see them every few hours to take more throat swabs for analysis, to shine penlights into their eyes, do various tests for concussion, take blood, take urine, take their temperatures, tsk-tsk over their bruises, and change their dressings. When O'Neill had complained bitterly about the stupid backless hospital gowns which sent a breeze straight up your…she'd brought them pajamas. Daniel's had been far too big for him and he'd had to roll the sleeves up on the jacket but he hadn't complained. O'Neill had decided the jacket was way too wussy to wear and just wore the pants. Daniel had buttoned his jacket all the way up so no one could see the purple bruises on his body. Some of them looked like bitemarks and O'Neill had felt sick all the way to his toes when he caught a brief glimpse. When Daniel rolled the sleeves up too far O'Neill would see the bruises on his wrists where the belt had bitten into them. Then Daniel would notice them and hastily roll his sleeves down again.

Sooner or later he knew Fraiser was going to pick a time when Daniel was in the shower and ask him what the hell had happened on that planet. They'd only been spared the debriefing because she'd banned any non-essential personnel from running the risk of contamination, but he heard Hammond coming to ask how they were a couple of times a day. The first priority had been to protect the base from the diphtheria germs they were probably carrying while getting Carter the anti-toxin, and he and Daniel as walking wounded had come a long way down a list of essentials. She'd still run herself ragged looking after them – this was Janet Fraiser after all – but they'd escaped the kind of questioning she would normally have subjected them to. Daniel was obviously hoping his bruises would have faded by the time she could give him her full attention, but as each day they just seemed to come out in brighter and more vibrant colors O'Neill had a feeling he was going to be out of luck. They'd moved past crimson and were at the spectacular mauve-and-black stage now, but it was clearly going to be a while before they faded to yellowish blue memories.

He realized Daniel wasn't the only one avoiding the issue. O'Neill had been doing a pretty good job of it himself. Probably because of a little rule he had about never asking a question unless he was prepared to hear the answer. He didn't want to know this because he couldn't fix it. For some reason knowing that made it easier to ask.

"Danny…" It came out hoarse, surprising both of them.

Daniel gave him a shocked look over his book, wary. He had his poised-for-flight expression on but there was nowhere to run to in an isolation ward. There were only so many showers a guy could take a day.

"I need to know."

Daniel blinked at him in confusion. "What?"

"You know."

"The true meaning of life? The name of the ninth Pharaoh? The square root of a hundred and twenty nine? Narrow it down for me a little."

O'Neill set his jaw. "Onuris' first prime guy. Did he…?"

"No." It was out so fast he flinched from it.

He looked at Daniel's face, trying to read him. It was difficult to look past the bruises. Was this Daniel attempting to lie to him or Daniel telling the truth?

O'Neill cleared his throat awkwardly. "When I passed out, he was…"

"I know, but he didn't."

"If you need to…"

Daniel blinked in what was definitely exasperation. "Jack, he didn't." O'Neill must have looked as unconvinced as he felt because Daniel sighed. "He got distracted and I kicked him."

"Where?"

Daniel looked at him for a moment. "The hell away from me."

"No, I meant…"

"I know what you meant. Yes: there."

O'Neill let the relief wash through him. There was no avoidance in Daniel's eyes. The boy was telling the truth. Oh thank you, god. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. He couldn't stop that huge grin breaking out as the relief ran through his veins with the warmth of good brandy. Aloud he said: "Good. Very, very good, Daniel. Gold star. Go to the top of the class."

"That's what Sam told me to do."

O'Neill stared at him. "Carter?"

"After we got back from Hadante. She said if some guy ever tried to…you know…I should kick his balls up through his brain. It might raise his IQ a few points, but it would also most likely slow him down considerably." Daniel gave him a pointed look. "She said you and Teal'c were probably going to get round to telling me about that some day, but as you hadn't, she thought she'd better. Given what could have happened to me on Hadante."

"Oh." O'Neill grimaced. "So, when we were in Netu, you knew those guys were…?"

"Oh yeah."

"Carter has a big mouth."

"Sam has this strange idea I'm an adult who might function more efficiently if he's given all available data. Must be the scientist in her."

O'Neill winced but Daniel didn't look mad, just resigned. He had his long-suffering martyr expression on again. O'Neill pointed a finger at him. "You know I hate it when you look like that."

"Yep." The grin was fleeting, blink and he'd have missed it but he knew Daniel too well by now.

"Remind me again why I've never hit you?"

Daniel looked him in the eye this time. "Because you're a nice guy?"

That stopped him more effectively than a punch to the solar plexus. O'Neill coughed, and then averted his eyes. "Don't think so."

"I know so."

"You're a civilian. You don't know anything."

"Know more than you do."

"Don't."

"Do."

"Don't."

"Do too."

"I see the level of debate is as elevated as ever in here." Janet Fraiser had the long-suffering martyr look off pat as well. As she stepped through the plastic sheeting she added pointedly: "Teal'c and Sam are discussing wormhole physics in their room."

"Poor Teal'c," O'Neill retorted. "Bet he's wishing he could kel'no'reem his way outta that conversation."

"Some people do actually find one of the most fascinating astrophysical phenomenon in the universe quite interesting, Colonel."

"Some people collect stamps. Some people learn Klingon or change their name to 'James T Kirk'. And then there's the people who have a life…"

"Oh yes." Daniel looked around their isolation unit and nodded gravely. "We certainly know how to live in this part of the infirmary."

"We have interesting conversations," O'Neill protested.

"You play 'I Spy' and make fun of Daniel's pajamas," Fraiser told him wearily. "I'm only in the next room."

"Doc, he looks ten years old in them and you know it. And don't think I haven't noticed that someone picked jim-jams for Daniel that match the color of his eyes, whereas I got the first pair your orderly came to."

"At least yours fit," Daniel retorted.

"I have some nice hospital gowns you're both welcome to wear."

They both subsided at once. O'Neill plucked at the grey cotton sulkily. "These aren't so bad."

She gave him a chilly smile. "I knew you were grateful really."

"Jack's grateful on the inside." Daniel gave her one of his sweet-little-boy smiles and got a positively doting look in return.

O'Neill scowled at him. "Suck-up."

The examinations followed the usual pattern. She asked each of them how they were feeling. They told her they were fine and could they leave now. She told them they had to stay here for a few more days. They sighed heavily at her. She sighed heavily right back. They asked to see Teal'c and Carter. She told them they couldn't. They asked how they were. She said they were going to be fine. Daniel would go very quiet when that 'going' was mentioned. Fraiser would look anxious about him. O'Neill would make a bad joke to take his mind off things while wondering how Daniel could be blaming himself for a mission he hadn't been leading; a mission that was so obviously O'Neill's fault. Then Fraiser would first ask them what they wanted for lunch as though there was some possibility they might get it. They'd tell her what they wanted. She'd tell them what they were having. The two never corresponded in any way.

Today as she headed back towards the door, O'Neill realized she didn't look like Dustin Hoffman this time. "No protective gear?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I see your observational skills are getting back to normal, Colonel."

"Okay, I was a little slow, but is there some…significance to this?" He held out an expressive hand.

She returned his gaze with an unreadable expression, before shaking her head. "I guess I just felt lucky." Her smile was brief but dazzling before she passed through the plastic strips, under the UV lighting, and out of the door.

He and Daniel exchanged looks of disbelief.

"We don't have diphtheria germs." Daniel blinked in realization. "We're not infected. I wonder when Janet got the results."

O'Neill scowled after her. "Probably an hour after we got back."

"So why are we stuck here?"

O'Neill looked between Daniel's bruises and his own leg. The bandage was hidden underneath the pajama trousers but the wound was still only half-healed. He and Daniel had barely gotten any sleep in days. Daniel had been tortured, and almost raped. They'd both had the crap kicked out of them by Onuris' lion guards. What better way to ensure they rested, ate, healed, and talked everything through, than to stick them in a room together and tell them they were too contagious to leave until she said so?

"You know I swear Doc Fraiser is getting sneakier." O'Neill looked at the plastic sheeting with grudging respect. "You have to admire that about her."

Daniel sighed. "Well, you are a lousy patient, so I guess Janet had a point."

"Oh, and you're not?"

Daniel looked astonished that anyone could even ask such a question. "I'm a model patient."

O'Neill raised his eyes to the ceiling and wondered what the hell was keeping it up. Didn't people get struck by lightning at least for telling those kinds of lies? He shook his head in disbelief. Daniel pointedly picked up his book again.

Darting another glance at him, O'Neill said, "Is there…stuff we should be talking about?"

"Such as?" Daniel had his wary look on again.

"You know…stuff that happened?"

"Me going to the temple when you'd told me not to and damned near getting us all killed stuff? All those people dying because of us stuff? Or do you mean you looking me in the eye and lying right at me stuff?"

O'Neill flinched from the crispness of his voice. He'd thought they'd covered that 'lying' business back in the temple, but it seemed to have just been put on the backburner for another day. Apparently that was an even bigger no-no than he'd realized, and when Daniel got pissy he got seriously…pissy. When crossed, Daniel could be like the wife whose dinner party you'd forgotten and the child whose birthday you hadn't been home for rolled into one. "Or you could read?"

Daniel nodded. "Reading sounds good."

He watched Daniel open his book, and sighed heavily. On this showing, if Janet Fraiser was intending to keep him and Daniel in the infirmary until they talked through all the crap this mission had stirred up, she was going to be short of an isolation ward for one hell of a long time.

***

She was trying to use the healing device again, but there wasn't enough strength in her body for her to make it work. Teal'c was fading, eyes flickering as his symbiote died inside him, dragging him down with it, like the chain of an anchor caught around the ankle of a drowning man. She had to make it work. She had to. She'd done it for the High Priest, why couldn't she do it for her friend? Because it matters too much. It had mattered when she was saving Cronos, hadn't it? The whole planet hanging in the balance. And hadn't it mattered with the High Priest? All their lives in jeopardy and her needing to prove that they too had the power of gods. So, why couldn't she make it work to help Teal'c? Why…?

"Sam…?"

Carter groaned inwardly as she groped her way out of the nightmare back towards consciousness. She'd heard her father's voice as clearly as if he was standing by her bedside. Not more delirium. The anti-toxin was supposed to be working. She'd really thought she was getting better, but, no, she was obviously still trapped in that old spiral of memories. The nightmare of Netu; Bynarr's face leering at her; the stench of him in her nostrils; the hideous friction of his body exploring hers. She could only find the antidote to that memory of Jolinar's in another. Like fresh air after sulfur, she would inhale the memory of Martouf; his skin, his hair; the warmth of his lips against hers banishing the bruise of Bynarr's unwanted kiss.

"Samantha?"

Carter opened her eyes in shock. Was she going to be hearing voices for the rest of her life?

"Samantha…?" It was said gently this time. She turned her head and found herself staring at the face of the man she had just kissed in her mind.

His hair had been trimmed even shorter since the last time she'd seen him. Without the dust of Netu, it looked the color of wheat and his blue eyes were full of anxiety. Eyes like the oceans of Marnoon…hair the color of the sands of Abydos…That had been his description of Rosha, Jolinar's host, but he had said it would equally well apply to her. She realized that although she had never visited Marnoon she knew what color its oceans were, and they were the color of his eyes as well. There were moments when she knew everything Jolinar had known. Including how it felt to be in love with this man. "Martouf?"

His smile lit up his face, transforming him from the unknowable Tok'ra to someone much younger and so vulnerable. Apophis had realized how much she meant to him before she had known it herself. His voice was formal but his eyes were full of warmth. "You are feeling a little better?"

Carter felt that strange pull of something within herself towards him, like a divining rod towards water. Jolinar or Sam Carter? How would she ever know? She sat up in the bed, more than a little embarrassed to realize she was wearing pajamas in front of him, and by the raspy sound of her voice. "If you're not a hallucination, I guess I must be."

"We're real, Sam."

She jerked her head round in surprise to find another familiar face gazing at her. "Dad!"

After so many nightmares about losing him in Netu, it was wonderful to throw her arms around him and feel his hug almost crush her ribcage. She closed her eyes and breathed him in like safety. She could see her younger selves lined up in her memory like Russian dolls all hugging him in relief. She remembered the way his buttons had always felt so cold against her cheek; the texture of his dress blues chafing the skin. He'd always felt unyielding; his uniform something which kept her from feeling his warmth. Even when she was wearing the same uniform, there had just been two layers of blue serge separating their hearts. She'd joined the Air Force as much to find him as to find herself and they'd never even got close until he'd become part of someone else. Was it any wonder that she felt so much liking for the Tok'ra?

She felt his hand touch her hair and his lips briefly brush the top of her head. A reminder of how close she must have come to dying. She'd scared him this time. Well, he'd scared her enough times in the past. When she pulled back from the embrace and met his gaze, she thought ruefully of how alike they were sometimes. She always thought she was so much better than he was at being in tune with her emotions, but she knew Daniel would probably think they were two sides of the same coin. Two people so steeped in the military mindset they equated all emotion with weakness. Something they were so frightened of they shied away from any dealings with their feelings. For the first time it occurred to her that Daniel was probably the only member of SG-1 who didn't think there was anything wrong with caring as deeply about his teammates as he so obviously did. There were days when she really envied him that.

"How are you feeling?" Her father attempted to find a smile despite obviously fighting concern.

"Fine." It came out raspy and unfamiliar.

He turned to look at the figure in the next bed. "And how are you doin', Teal'c?"

The Jaffa gave him a weary smile. "I am recovering, General Carter."

Carter grimaced. She didn't believe he was recovering. Or if he was it was such a slow process that it was barely perceptible. Teal'c usually threw off injuries with no ill effects, but that was because his symbiote usually healed him; this time it had concentrated all its efforts on the process of trying to heal itself and he was looking drawn from constant pain. "His symbiote was badly injured, and it's still not recovered. I tried to make the healing device work, but I…" She wasn't going to cry in front of her father. She was a goddamned Air Force Major and she was damned well going to act like one. She grimaced herself back under control. "I couldn't make it work this time."

"Well how about if we speed things up a little?" Her father gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and the belief that Teal'c was going to be okay immediately strengthened. How could he still do that? She was torn between resentment of his power to make her feel better and gratitude that he had.

When Martouf smiled at her, she was taken aback both by the way his smile transformed his face, and by that instinctive response she had to the light in his eyes when he looked at her. But was that Jolinar or Samantha who responded? How was she ever going to know?

"This is Verashan."

The woman had been waiting by the doorway, clearly not wishing to intrude on the reunion. She was tall and dark with strong features. Carter smiled a greeting while Teal'c inclined his head in that uniquely graceful gesture of his. Verashan did not smile back but there was a brief nod of acknowledgement.

"She is a healer," Martouf explained.

"As, I understand, are you?" Verashan spoke crisply.

There was no warmth in her eyes and Carter felt a twinge of hostility. "I can use the healing device, sometimes, but I don't really have any control over it."

"Yet you healed Cronos."

There was accusation in the tone. Carter set her jaw. "Our whole planet was under threat. I didn't exactly feel I had a lot of choice."

"He is one of the most evil of all the system lords."

Carter met the Tok'ra's dark gaze unflinchingly. "I know that. He sent the Ashrak to kill Jolinar. He murdered Teal'c's father. He's not someone on my Christmas card list. He was just someone we needed alive to protect our planet. I did what I had to do." I'm a soldier, that's what we do. You ought to know that.

Verashan was slipping on the healing device as she spoke, but her gaze flickered between Carter and Teal'c with barely veiled hostility. "But I do not have to do this."

"Then do not." It was Teal'c who spoke quietly.

Martouf murmured something to Verashan and she snapped back her answer tartly. Carter saw her father wince, then his eyes flare gold as Selmac briefly took over. "Teal'c has proven his loyalty too many times to count. He offered his own life for that of Kora. He saved all of us on Netu." He turned to look at her. "I can also use the healing device but in a case such as this it was felt best to bring in a…specialist."

So it was bad. She's thought as much and Janet must have confirmed it when talking to her father. Selmac was one of the oldest and the wisest of the Tok'ra but even he hadn't been certain he had skill enough to save Teal'c. Instead it depended on this Verashan, who, somehow needed to be won over to saving the life of an ex-first-Prime of Apophis.

"He's a good man," Carter looked across at her friend. Teal'c looked so weary and incongruously vulnerable in those blue-striped pajamas. Seeing the clear signs of pain on his face, she turned to Verashan with a mixture of anger and pleading. "Why did you come here if you weren't prepared to help us?"

"I promised nothing," the Tok'ra returned. "I only said that I would come because Selmac asked it." She turned on Teal'c and said accusingly, "Your father was first prime of Cronos. You were first prime of Apophis. It is Jaffa such as yourself who have helped them to maintain their power."

"Exactly why I now oppose them, and hope to inspire other Jaffa to do the same."

She gestured at his abdomen. "You harbor within you a child of Apophis. It was Apophis who murdered my child. Why should I heal the offspring of my enemy to save your life?"

Martouf spoke quickly, "Teal'c has done as much to bring down Apophis as any Tok'ra. We owe him a great deal."

Teal'c met Verashan's gaze. "You owe me nothing, but I am more use to your cause alive than dead."

Carter hauled herself up in the bed and gazed at the woman imploringly. "Please, Teal'c is very valuable to us, and to your cause." As the Tok'ra's gaze didn't flicker, Carter reached across and touched his shoulder. "You obviously know how it feels to have lost people. I do too. Teal'c is my friend. I don't want to lose him as well. Please…?"

For the first time she saw a flicker of emotion cross the Tok'ra's face. Carter tightened her grip on Teal'c's shoulder, trying not to let her frustration show. If only she could have got the healing device to work. She was going to try again. They didn't need the damned Tok'ra. SG-1 could take care of its own…As she felt the anger bubble up inside her, she realized how she sounded. Pissy and aggressive. Oh boy, she had obviously been spending way too much time with Daniel and Colonel O'Neill. When she glanced across at Teal'c he was the only one who looked calm. Perhaps when you had lived as many years as he had you had a better perspective on life and death, but although Jolinar had left a lot of useful pieces of information in her memory, the ability to deal with the death of a friend wasn't one of them.

"I will try." Abruptly Verashan raised her hand.

Carter flinched automatically as the light glowed on Teal'c's forehead, reflecting off the brand of Apophis, reminding her too vividly of Onuris almost murdering the Jaffa before her eyes. But then she saw Teal'c gasp as the light found his symbiote, his back arching as the healing light bored into him. A moment later, Verashan stepped back, her face still expressionless, while Teal'c blinked in surprise. He rested his hands across his abdomen gingerly and then nodded gravely to the Tok'ra. "Thank you."

Carter could feel that silly smile threatening to split her face in two. She couldn't stop the gratitude spilling out as she met Verashan's eye. "Yes, thank you."

The Tok'ra already looked as though a part of her regretted her action. "I hope you use the life I have restored to you well, Jaffa." She turned to Carter then and raised her hand.

Carter almost said: 'Don't bother on my account' but stopped herself in time. She didn't want to have a hole in her neck when it was avoidable, and although she wasn't particularly vain, opting to have an unsightly scar, when she could have unmarked flesh, just seemed silly. It was Martouf who leant forward and carefully removed the tracheotomy tube. She gasped as warmth caressed her forehead. A second later the light concentrated on the base of her throat before traveling down across her breastbone. It was a strange sensation; pain and pleasure intermingling as her cells were presumably reassembled in a new order. She felt exposed and protected at the same time; the sensations so strong she wanted them to stop, and yet there was a heat behind them that was almost addictive. She wondered wryly if this was what S&M was like. Pain as a way to reassert your own identity; your own existence. Well, she'd definitely take someone's word for it on that score as this was as close to sado-masochism as she ever wanted to get. She wondered if this was what the sarcophagus felt like too. If it had been the sensations as well the effects that Daniel had become addicted to…? When the heat was abruptly withdrawn she felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.

She snatched a breath and then coughed with the shock of it as she realized there was no hole in her neck. When she put her fingers up to the place where the incision had been made there was only unbroken skin, not even the faintest trace of a scar.

"Thank you," she said hoarsely.

Verashan nodded at her coldly, cast another disapproving glance in Teal'c's direction, then left the room without a backwards glance. Carter had to fight hard not to make a face at her retreating figure.

"Verashan is one of the less…touchy-feely Tok'ra," Jacob observed dryly.

Martouf gave Carter a slightly apologetic grimace. "She is not yet wholly convinced that an alliance between the Tok'ra and the Tau'ri will be to our advantage, but I'm sure that she will understand the benefits of our friendship in time."

Jacob grabbed a chair and sat by Teal'c's bed. "Okay, so do you want to tell me what went down on that planet? The word is Heru'Ur is moving in on all Onuris' planets. Is he really dead or is that just wishful thinking…?"

Carter smiled, shaking her head as Teal'c began to answer her father's questions, then turned back to Martouf who was gazing anxiously at her. When he took her hand in his she didn't feel the need to ask him why he was holding it, she just tightened her grip reflexively. She opened her mouth to ask him what had happened since she'd last seen him, and then realized that she didn't need – or perhaps even want – to know. He and her father would have been risking their lives in the battle against the Goa'uld. So had she and the rest of SG-1. They had moved from being 'peaceful explorers' to being soldiers in a war against the System Lords. She wondered if Daniel had realized that yet. How he felt about a transition which to the rest of them had probably always felt like a natural progression. Perhaps, given what the Goa'uld had done to his wife, he would have no problem with perceiving himself in such a role. She wasn't sure how she wanted him to feel, but like Colonel O'Neill she suspected they would have all have lost something the day Daniel resigned himself to being a warrior rather than an explorer.

"Samantha…?" Martouf said it softly. "What are you thinking?"

I'm thinking that you've been fighting this war for thousands of years and never once looked like winning, so why do I think it can be accomplished in my lifetime? But she didn't say it aloud. She didn't believe it, after all. She believed that wars could be won if one applied enough intelligence and determination to the problem, and she believed in the intelligence and determination of the SGC the way the people on the planet they'd just left had believed Daniel was the Chosen One. Yet Onuris was still dead because those people had believed Daniel was a deity, and she had a lot more empirical evidence for her convictions.

She looked across at Martouf and smiled. "I'm thinking that it's good to see you again."

As he squeezed her hand in acknowledgement, she looked across at her father, still asking Teal'c about Onuris, gathering data that might help them in the battle against the Goa'uld. It wasn't so long ago that he'd looked at death's door in Netu; and it was even less time since she'd been breathing what appeared to be her last on an alien world, yet here they both were alive and comparatively well. The Carter family obviously took a lot of killing. She smiled again as she realized that was one hell of a genetic inheritance to pass onto your children.

She focused on Martouf. "Tell me something interesting."

He blinked at her in surprise. "Since the death of Sokar, the System Lords have…"

She shook her head. "Tell me something else."

He understood in an instant. She saw him glance away to collect his thoughts. When he spoke his voice was soft: "Shall I tell you about Marnoon, and the time I spent there with Jolinar?"

"Thank you, I'd like that."

As Teal'c recounted for her father the deaths of Mehit and Onuris, Martouf began to tell her about the way the sunlight played upon the water and the gulls danced on the horizon line, swooping for the silver flickerings of fish. As she blotted out Teal'c's mission report and so-easily pictured the blue depths of that alien sea, Carter realized that, despite the tang of gasoline which occasionally overwhelmed them, she hadn't lost the sandcastles after all. Along with those hidden remnants of the Tok'ra who had died to save her, they were just buried in her memory, waiting to be uncovered.

***

Hear me, my Daniel…

The pain was terrible but he had to ignore it and listen to her voice. None of this was real. He didn't hate Teal'c. He wouldn't abandon Jack and Sam. He would never turn his back on General Hammond. These people were his family now. Why did it seem so easy to walk away from them in his dream?

Because how could he know how terrible it would be to have done this unless she showed him how it felt? He was the only one who knew how wise Sha're was. How strong. How could he live with the loss of her? How could you walk around with a hole inside you where your heart had been?

Promise me, you will find the boy…

Jack knew all about loss. There was nothing Jack didn't know about the emptiness inside. You had to make sense of the past by the way you chose to live the future. That got you through the present: telling yourself it was part of a journey towards something good, and not just a journey away from something you'd lost forever. Perhaps there had been a time when Jack woke up every morning and told himself he was breathing in and out today because Charlie wanted him to. But Daniel was pretty sure Jack wanted to for himself as well these days. Daniel had to get to a point where he was living, not just to fulfill a promise he'd made to his dead wife, but because there were so many things he still wanted to do with his life.

But the pain was unbearable. The laser burning into his brain. The loss eating a hole through his heart. When she kissed him, he felt the ribbon device against his scalp, her fingers furrowing through his hair, her lips so warm and soft against his, but all the time against his skin the chill of the metal with which Amaunet would try to kill him…

Daniel woke with a gasp to the rustle of plastic sheeting. The faint purple light to his left from the UV beams was almost drowned out by the soft lamplight from the cabinet by the side of Jack's empty bed. Looking around for the man, it was a shock to find Jack gazing at him anxiously from the side of his bed. He blinked up at him in surprise. "Jack?"

Jack was balancing on one leg, his eyes full of concern, that expression others didn't get to see too often. "You were having a bad dream."

Daniel grimaced. "Sorry I woke you."

"I wasn't asleep." Jack jerked a thumb at the wall. "Carter had a nightmare about Jolinar and Bynarr two hours ago. Teal'c had a bad dream about Ry'ac an hour after that. Then you came in right on cue with Sha're ten minutes ago."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Wow, aren't you lucky? You get to win the 'I have the most screwed up team in the SGC' award three years running. You know they really ought to let you keep that cup this time."

The bed creaked a protest as Jack sat on it. "That's not funny."

"Oh, come on, Jack. No one else has to put up mission proposals based on what someone saw in a dream."

"Hey, we saved Teal'c's kid. We met the Tok'ra. We're going to find Sha're's son. My team delivers."

Daniel looked up at the man for a moment, noticing how little brown there was left in Jack's hair, the black eye, the bruise on his jaw, the other bruises all over his ribs. "Yes, and we're doing you so much good in the process. I can see that."

There was a pause before Jack said: "Fraiser said I could go home tomorrow as long as there's someone with me to stop me doing anything that might be remotely enjoyable."

Daniel shrugged. "That would be me then."

"You sure?"

"What are friends for?" Daniel frowned and looked around the room. "When did Janet come in?"

"When you were in the shower. For the second time." There was another laden silence before Jack said casually, "She was asking me if there was anything Doctor Mackenzie needed to know."

There were days when Jack could be ignorant, annoying, and insensitive. But there were also days when he could be so there for you it almost hurt. "What did you tell her?"

"I said I'd have to ask you, but I didn't think so."

Daniel moistened his lips then forced a smile. "I don't think so either."

Jack put a hand up to the back of his neck, rubbing it awkwardly, trying to get imaginary kinks out and in the process giving himself a very good excuse not to have to meet Daniel's eye. "As your friend I need to know you're okay."

"I'm okay."

"And as your C.O. I need to know that bastard attempting to…assault you isn't going to come around and bite us all in the ass in six months time if I cover for you and you don't get any therapy."

"Jack, a lot of people died in that temple. I don't think it's really…"

Jack held up a finger. "Daniel, don't give me the lecture. I'm aware that there were folks who got worse in that place than we did. I'm just asking you. So…?"

Daniel let the man see the truth in his eyes. "It wasn't a fun experience but it wasn't as bad as losing Sha're, or thinking I was going insane, or seeing a Goa'uld go into you, or being told everyone was dead. I got slapped around in public by someone who had…other intentions, but as he didn't get to carry them out I can deal with it. It's not a problem. Okay? I'm going to lose a lot more sleep over Harun."

There was what felt like an endless pause then Jack nodded. "Okay." He reached out and patted Daniel on the shoulder. "But get some sleep while you can, because, trust me, you're going to need it. I am going to be the patient from hell, and if I hurt myself while in your care Doc Fraiser's going to be all over you like the wrath of God. After all the times she's been after me for letting you get lost, damaged or stolen, that is going to be so satisfying."

As Jack limped back to his bed, Daniel felt another of those sharp pangs of affection for the man. He wasn't quite sure when he had allowed some impossibly cranky Air Force colonel to become the keystone of his existence, but it had definitely not been one of his better ideas. He really did need to wean himself off his dependence on the SGC in general, and Jack in particular. He wasn't going to let himself dwell on the way General Hammond had become a better guardian to him than his own grandfather had ever been. Or the way Sam had become the sister he'd never had. How much Teal'c had come to matter to him despite all the history between them. He could give these people up any time he liked. Yeah, right.

As he burrowed back down under the blankets he said softly, "Jack?"

He didn't think it was an accident that the man switched off the lamp before he answered. "What?"

"Thanks."

There was a pause before Jack said, "Don't get mushy on me, Daniel."

Daniel grinned, relieved by the way some things about Jack just never changed. He pulled the blanket up higher. "Wouldn't dream of it."

This time as Daniel drifted into slumber, he didn't feel the ribbon device boring a hole in his brain. He was back on the tel'tak with Jack a solid warmth at his side, Teal'c where he could see him if he turned his head, and Sam safe on the other side of the ship, asleep on Martouf's shoulder. They were all grubby and exhausted, but they were alive, and Apophis was dead. Just like Onuris and Mehit were dead. And Hathor. And Sokar. And Ra. Perhaps too many of the good died every day, but the bad died too, and sometimes the good got a chance to help them on their way. Perhaps that was the path Sha're wanted him to follow now. Perhaps he needed to concentrate his energies on defeating the Goa'uld who had stolen her life, and her child.

She had shown such strength at the last; communicating with him despite all Amaunet's best efforts to defeat her. She had shown the courage to choose a battle she could win; not wasting her efforts in a futile effort to save him from Amaunet, or to hang onto her own life. She had trusted to Teal'c to save him, had let go of life for herself, and concentrated on that last act of maternal love. Perhaps it was time for him to honor her strength by finding her child, not only to keep him safe, but so that they could use the knowledge contained within him to defeat the race which had murdered his mother. Perhaps it was time Daniel Jackson stopped trying to heal the world and also chose a battle he could win…

***

Teal'c was aware of Major Carter arguing with Doctor Fraiser about the need for her to use a wheelchair to travel to the commissary. He was also aware that his symbiote was restless and disgruntled. Teal'c had no doubt his symbiote considered him no more than the vessel in which it resided; for it to be injured by a Goa'uld attempting to kill him had probably annoyed it intensely. Nor did he need to be able to see into the mind of a child of Apophis to know it would be unhappy to realize it had been saved by the charity of a Tok'ra. All in all, he doubted that his symbiote was in the best of tempers, but it was well again, and consequently so was he.

Closing his eyes he blocked out the restless wriggling in his abdomen and the impassioned arguments from Major Carter. (Clearly an argument she was never going to win meaning she was wasting her energy unnecessarily.) He was trying to remember his dream of the night before. O'Neill had surprised him once by asking how he could tell if his dreams were his own, or if they were the result of 'Junior' whispering 'stuff' in his ear at night. There were times when O'Neill was the easiest to read of all Teal'c's teammates, and times when he was the hardest. Teal'c had explained patiently that there was no connection between the Jaffa and the symbiote except for a physical process which took place during kel'no'reem; their minds did not touch.

"But how do you know?" O'Neill had been gazing suspiciously at Teal'c's midriff. "I mean those little buggers could whisper all kinds of things in your ear and make it seem like you were doing what you wanted, and all the time you could be doing what they wanted."

That was the first time that Teal'c had realized the symbiote Hathor had put into O'Neill might well have talked to him while it was dying. Although it had clearly had neither the time nor the strength to blend with him, it could have told him the ways in which it was going to use his body to murder Major Carter and Daniel Jackson. Teal'c wondered if it made you stronger or weaker to have survived your worst fear. O'Neill had lost his child – any father's worst fear; and then he had been turned into a Goa'uld, albeit briefly and without a true blending, which was, Teal'c suspected, O'Neill's second greatest fear. Daniel Jackson had lost his parents when a child – any child's worst fear – and then lost his wife to the Goa'uld. He had been forced to confront the undeniable evidence of her rape, and then watched her murdered before his eyes. But neither O'Neill nor Daniel Jackson could be hurt through their dead loved ones ever again. Teal'c's companions might dream of the ones they had lost, but perhaps they had been made stronger by the fire they had walked through.

One of the teachings of the final challenge was that friendship could be a weakness. So could love. Apophis had used Teal'c's pride in and love for his son to send a bomb amongst the Tau'ri. While Ry'ac lived, Teal'c was vulnerable; yet should Ry'ac die, Teal'c would be so much lessened he was not sure that he would be able to find enough good within himself to offset what was already a considerable burden of hatred. He wondered if anyone had told Daniel Jackson that hatred was as much of a weakness as love or fear. He wondered if he even knew that lesson himself. He could channel his hatred of Apophis into defiant action or determination in the face of insurmountable odds, but he could not rid himself of the emotion. His hatred for the Goa'uld was as much of a part of himself now as his love for his son. While both existed in equal strength they could offset the other; if he lost one – as Daniel Jackson had lost his wife – he wondered if he would have the strength to prevent the hatred overwhelming everything else.

So, he knew his dreams of Ry'ac – even when they became nightmares – came from his own consciousness and not that of the symbiote within him. What he did not know was if he could survive the loss of his son as O'Neill had survived the loss of his, and not lose all that was best about himself in the process. O'Neill might be afraid of the darkness that dwelt within Teal'c in the shape of that wriggling symbiote, but there were times when Teal'c was far more afraid of the inner darkness which came only from his own soul.

And despite all his best efforts it was now impossible for him to block out the sounds of Major Carter protesting to Doctor Fraiser.

"Major Carter!"

He spoke more sharply than he had intended and she looked at him in surprise. "Teal'c?"

"Doctor Fraiser has differentiated between our treatment because she has experience with my symbiote healing my injuries. She has no experience with the Goa'uld healing device as a cure for diphtheria. As a scientist you should respect her need to supervise your recovery for longer than mine."

"Thank you, Teal'c," Janet Fraiser said it with just a hint of smugness before turning to Major Carter with a shrug. "Your choice, Sam. You can go to the commissary in a wheelchair, or you can stay here and I'll have breakfast brought to you."

Major Carter glowered between both of them and then sat herself in the wheelchair. "All right. But it still isn't fair."

Doctor Fraiser smiled over her head at Teal'c. "That's exactly what Colonel O'Neill said."

"On occasion life is not fair." Teal'c pulled on the robe Doctor Fraiser had provided him with and moved to take the handles of Major Carter's wheelchair.

Doctor Fraiser's smile widened. "And that's pretty much what Daniel said."

Teal'c cast an enquiring glance at her. "And O'Neill's response to that was…?"

"Not suitable for your ears, Teal'c," Doctor Fraiser assured him cheerfully.

As he wheeled a pajama-clad Major Carter towards the commissary, Teal'c could see the top of her blonde hair, the sulky slump to her robe-covered shoulders, and the restless tapping of her slippered feet where they rested on the metal flaps. She appeared atypically childlike in her robe and pajamas; while the expression on her face because she was not being permitted to walk made him think of Ry'ac when thwarted. He had to hide a smile as he saw the set look to her chin. There were times when he found himself wondering if Major Carter and Daniel Jackson were twins accidentally separated at birth, and never more so than now.

"I feel perfectly well." Major Carter tilted back her head to look at him, a mutinous set to her jaw. "I'm going to walk."

But she made no immediate move to get out of the wheelchair, again reminding Teal'c of the way Daniel Jackson tested O'Neill on missions sometimes, with his 'I could just go and take a look at that…' Sometimes he would get a sigh, a shrug of acquiescence, and O'Neill's resigned wave to the rest of them to follow the archaeologist; sometimes a firm albeit not always persuasive, 'No, you don't…Get back here!'

Teal'c decided that as with Daniel Jackson the indirect approach might be more successful. "Major Carter, should you not be setting a better example for Colonel O'Neill?"

Major Carter had one foot outstretched to put on the ground, yet she stopped in mid-action. "But…"

"He may well be causing Daniel Jackson some difficulties."

As Major Carter opened her mouth to answer him, Teal'c heard O'Neill's protests echoing back down the corridor to meet them:

"…okay to spend two days limping through a freakin' jungle but I can't walk to the commissary…!"

"It's because you spent two days limping through the jungle that Janet doesn't want you walking on it now."

"…and if my knees seize up from lack of use…"

"The rest of us will be sure to hear all about it…"

Teal'c and Major Carter exchanged an amused glance. As Teal'c wheeled his teammate around the corner, he found a pajama-and-robe-clad O'Neill sitting in a wheelchair, gazing up at Daniel Jackson with suspicious eyes. "What?"

Daniel Jackson blinked at him innocently. "What?"

Teal'c observed that, like himself, Daniel Jackson was also wearing pajamas and a robe. There was a certain satisfaction in realizing that even when SG-1 was out of uniform, they still somehow managed to look like a team.

Daniel Jackson noticed them first and his face lit up in welcome. "Sam! Teal'c!"

Teal'c watched Daniel Jackson bound across to hug Major Carter, while she wrapped her arms around him tightly. "Are you really okay?" Daniel Jackson murmured it breathlessly into her hair.

"Yes, look – " she pushed him back gently and proudly indicated her unscarred neck. "You can't even see the join."

Daniel peered at her neck and made sounds of surprise and approval, before reaching across to tentatively touch Teal'c on the shoulder. "Good to see you're well again too, Teal'c."

Teal'c did wonder how much it had cost the young man to be glad of his recovery, given their history, but there did seem to be genuine relief in Daniel Jackson's blue eyes, and for himself, he was very glad of even that slight pressure of fingers against his shoulder. He inclined his head. "Thank you, Daniel Jackson. I am relieved to see you and O'Neill are also recovered."

"Yeah, great, Teal'c can see I'm well enough to walk to get my own breakfast. How come Fraiser can't?"

Daniel Jackson sighed heavily and looked at Major Carter. "Guess who gets the fun of taking care of Jack for the next month?"

She gave him an understanding smile but was too good an officer, Teal'c noted, to make any audible noises of sympathy.

O'Neill wheeled himself backwards a few feet to peer at Major Carter's neck. "Hey, and Doc Fraiser thinks she does neat surgery."

"I never got a chance to thank you for that, Colonel."

Daniel Jackson scratched his jaw. "No, well, of course, Jack wouldn't let either of us actually speak..."

O'Neill ignored the younger man to nod to Major Carter. "You're welcome. Just don't do it again."

"Apparently I'm now immune from that strain of diphtheria. Just like the rest of you."

"Oh well in that case let's go back to good old PX3-519. I mean what was not to like?"

Daniel Jackson sighed again. As he took the handles of O'Neill's wheelchair, his posture suggested to Teal'c someone who was about to begin a term of imprisonment with no prospect of release. "Please tell me you're not going to whine if they don't have any Froot Loops?"

"Oh like you never bitch about it when they run out of waffles."

Teal'c saw Major Carter tilt her head back to look up at him again. "Let's always share isolation wards, Teal'c."

He could not suppress his own smile. "Agreed, Major Carter."

"Oh I bet you had the nicest ward too, with pictures on the walls, and fluffy towels, just because Fraiser likes you better than she likes me."

Teal'c wheeled Major Carter so she was level with O'Neill's wheelchair. He said expressionlessly, "As far as I am aware, O'Neill, this preference is not limited to Doctor Fraiser. In fact I would say it was unanimous throughout the SG – "

The man interrupted with a scowl. "Thank you for your words of support, Teal'c."

"You are welcome, O'Neill."

O'Neill glanced up at him then looked at the corridor ahead of them. Teal'c followed his gaze. The grey-walled passageway was beguilingly empty. He and O'Neill exchanged a look.

O'Neill scratched his jaw, shot Teal'c a sideways glance then murmured, "Wanna race? Last one to the commissary buys the pizza this Friday night?"

Teal'c felt mischief tingle within him. After so many days of being a prisoner of the benevolent tyranny of Doctor Fraiser; not to mention a prisoner of his own symbiote's inability to heal him; it felt very good to be able to stretch his legs again. It would feel even better to win a race. But…Teal'c cast a pitying look at O'Neill. Given the difference in the weight of O'Neill and Major Carter, not to mention the difference in the strength of Daniel Jackson and himself, there could only be one victor. Was it fair to take such an easy wager? "I think not, O'Neill."

O'Neill curled his lip. "Hah. Scared, eh?"

"What?" Daniel Jackson collected himself from what had obviously been deep thought.

"We're racing Carter and Teal'c to the commissary."

Daniel Jackson blinked at him in confusion. "Why?"

"My question exactly," Major Carter put in.

"Because it's fun." O'Neill shook his head at what he evidently considered their stupidity. He jabbed a finger at Teal'c "And you are so buying the pizza come Friday night."

Major Carter bristled defensively. "With the greatest respect, sir. You may as well just give us the money right now."

"Oh, cocky."

Major Carter also looked between herself and O'Neill and then Teal'c and Daniel Jackson. "I'd say we were quietly confident, yes, Colonel."

"I resent that on Daniel's behalf," O'Neill returned defiantly.

"Why?" Daniel Jackson still looked as if the situation was running away from him a little. "Teal'c's stronger than me, Sam's lighter than you…"

"Daniel!" O'Neill held up a warning finger. "We're going to win."

"This is stupid."

O'Neill twisted his head round to look up at him in exasperation. "Didn't you ever take on stupid bets when you were at school?"

Daniel Jackson's evident bewilderment proved the truth of his reply. "No."

"Well it's high time you did then." He glanced back at Teal'c. "On three."

Teal'c nodded and despite the absurdity of the situation he did feel a flicker of competitive spirit assert itself. He and O'Neill were friends, teammates, all-but-brothers; both would have died for the other. But they were also both what Daniel Jackson referred to, usually with a long-suffering sigh, as 'alpha males', and there were occasions when Teal'c did take a quiet satisfaction in demonstrating his superior strength to O'Neill, just as he knew O'Neill took a secret pleasure in those – rare – occasions when he managed to physically best Teal'c.

"One…" O'Neill darted him a look that told Teal'c the man was also taking this race seriously. "Two…Three!"

The wheelchair was surprisingly difficult to steer, and Teal'c found it veered from side to side as he pushed it. Major Carter felt very light to him, but the axels of the wheels were badly designed and it would have been deemed utterly unacceptable as a means of transportation by any Goa'uld. Indeed the designer of such a device would undoubtedly have been ordered thrown to wild dogs by any self-respecting System Lord. As would the designers of all supermarket carts Teal'c had as yet encountered.

Given their weight and strength advantage it seemed only fair to allow Daniel Jackson to run by the inside wall so he would have less ground to cover, but as he steered Major Carter around the first corner with ease, Teal'c realized the sharper turn was probably harder for Daniel Jackson to manage. Something proven when in Daniel Jackson's attempt to wrench the wheelchair around the bend O'Neill was nearly spilled onto the floor by the wheelchair rising sharply on two wheels. Teal'c automatically reached across to give it a push back. Daniel Jackson' smile of gratitude was turned into a flinch as both O'Neill and Major Carter shouted: "Don't help!" in unison.

Major Carter gave Teal'c an apologetic grimace, explaining, "I just really want to win." She gripped the arms of the wheelchair as Teal'c nodded and increased his pace. He could well understand her desire to beat O'Neill at something. Especially as Daniel Jackson had never been known to take any show of strength personally, so would not be upset by their defeat.

Nevertheless, it seemed unfair to simply speed away from the other two. Teal'c knew he could put on a spurt as they reached the last stretch, and if he kept only a little way ahead of Daniel Jackson and O'Neill until that point it would seem as if the race had been closer run than it had. That way the honor of all his teammates would be satisfied. It was not a word that was often spoken by the Tau'ri but Teal'c had found that it was as important to them as a concept as it was to any Jaffa.

There was only one more corner and then a straight run to the commissary. Teal'c hugged the far wall to give Daniel Jackson more room to maneuver his wheelchair and its burden around the inner wall, so busy keeping an eye on Daniel Jackson and O'Neill that he almost didn't see the danger ahead in time.

"Teal'c!"

At Major Carter's warning cry, Teal'c jerked his head round in time to see a familiar bald-headed figure directly in their path.

"Daniel Jackson!" he shouted it as he tilted the wheelchair and swung it towards the wall, grabbing Major Carter by the shoulder and pulling her back against the wheelchair so there was no danger of her being flung out.

Jerking his head round to see how his other two teammates had fared, he could only sympathize as Daniel Jackson, in a desperate attempt to avoid hitting General Hammond, also yanked his wheelchair at a right angle, but was not strong enough to prevent it from lurching violently onto two wheels, cannoning into the wall, and turning over. In the process spilling its burden in a loudly protesting heap at General Hammond's feet.

General Hammond looked between the four of them in disbelief. Major Carter and Daniel Jackson were both wincing in sympathy, while O'Neill rolled onto his back and clasped a hand to his leg, swearing horribly. After glancing down at O'Neill, General Hammond looked across at Teal'c. "Teal'c? Can you…offer some kind of explanation?"

"I am at a loss to do so, General Hammond," Teal'c admitted.

"We're very sorry, sir," Major Carter offered quickly.

Daniel Jackson scampered across to where O'Neill was, grabbed him, and hauled him up with a grunt of exertion. "Sorry, General. Jack wanted to…race."

"Ow!" O'Neill protested as he was manhandled back onto his feet.

General Hammond raised an eyebrow. "That looked like a nasty fall, Colonel. Shall I send for Doctor Fraiser?"

"No!"

O'Neill and Daniel Jackson both protested in unison.

"Jack's fine, sir, really." Daniel Jackson propped O'Neill against the wall, set the wheelchair back on its wheels, and quickly flipped down the bent-looking foot rests, making hasty hand motions to O'Neill to get into it.

O'Neill was back in the wheelchair in an instant with his feet on the rests, swiftly belting up his robe. "Like Daniel said, I'm fine, sir, really. Never better."

"All the same, Colonel O'Neill, I think perhaps I ought to inform Doctor…"

"Please, General." Daniel Jackson gripped the handles tightly. "Janet's scary when you don't do what she says."

General Hammond looked at the young man in mild reproach. "Perhaps just one of the many good reasons for doing what she says, Doctor Jackson?"

Major Carter said quickly. "Sir, we're sorry. We've just been cooped up in those isolation wards for so many days…"

"And there wasn't even anything wrong with Jack and me…"

Teal'c felt it was only fair to add his own apology and explanation. "Even I, General Hammond, have found the period of convalescence trying to the patience…"

"And it is a full moon."

As they all turned to gaze at O'Neill in disbelief, he looked back at them defiantly. "Hey, it's a reason."

General Hammond looked between them sternly. O'Neill was clutching his leg but trying to mask his obvious discomfort with a fixed smile, Daniel Jackson was shuffling his feet uncomfortably. "If you're well enough to indulge in…wheelchair races, Colonel O'Neill, I presume you're also well enough to write up your report on PX3-519?"

"Yes, sir."

"I expect it on my desk by the end of the day."

"Yes, sir."

"Doctor Jackson?"

"Yes?" Daniel Jackson jumped guiltily as the general said his name then winced in anticipation like a small boy afraid of a scolding.

Teal'c personally thought the likelihood of General Hammond ever offering Daniel Jackson more than the mildest reproach was very remote, but Daniel Jackson was clearly less sanguine.

"I will expect you to supply a report on everything you learned about the Goa'uld you encountered there."

Daniel Jackson nodded meekly.

"Teal'c, you can assist Doctor Jackson with his report, and, as I understand Major Carter and yourself were separated from Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson for a significant proportion of the mission, perhaps you would like to fill in Colonel O'Neill on any events to which he was not a direct witness?"

Teal'c inclined his head. "Of course, General Hammond."

Hammond looked at Major Carter last and his expression softened. "Teal'c's already informed me about what took place after you became ill, Major, so I don't think there's any need for you to complete a report."

Her face brightened with surprise and relief. "Thank you, sir."

The general looked between them all sternly once more. "To where were you…racing?"

"The commissary," Daniel Jackson supplied.

"Well I suggest you all proceed there at a pace that does not endanger yourselves or anyone else."

Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill exchanged winces, before both murmuring a subdued: "Yes, sir."

Teal'c and Daniel Jackson made a point of wheeling their respective burdens away from the watching general at a sedate pace. As Daniel Jackson opened his mouth to say something, O'Neill twisted round in his seat. "Don't even think about saying 'I told you so'." He glared across at his teammates. "And how come Carter doesn't have to write a report?"

"I have already informed General Hammond of what occurred on PX3-519," Teal'c explained, "and he is therefore aware that Major Carter was unwell for much of the mission."

"Well I had a hole in my leg for half the damned mission. I still have to write a report."

"Sam was delirious or unconscious for most of the time we were on the planet," Daniel Jackson protested. "You're just pissy because we lost the race."

"We didn't lose the race," O'Neill bristled at once.

"Yes, we did. Teal'c would have won easily."

"Ah yes, 'would' being the operative word, because we'll never know, because the race was never finished ."

"You are so petty when you're in the wrong."

"Oh, hello pot, meet kettle!"

"What's that supposed to mean…?"

Major Carter tilted her head back again and looked up at Teal'c. "Teal'c, that agreement about you and I always sharing isolation wards from now on? Could I have it in writing?"

Teal'c looked at her upside down face, very aware of the unbroken flesh at the base of her throat, the proof that for all Onuris' best efforts to destroy both of them, in the end he had not been able to leave even a visible scar. He smiled at her in affectionate relief. "Indeed, Major Carter."

***

The moonlight shone in through the patio doors to illuminate the picture in O'Neill's hands. He couldn't see the colors by the blue-grey light, but he could see the outlines. Four figures standing under some dark alien orb, a big stone circle behind them; each symbol meticulously sketched into its rim. The figures looked frail in the silvery light, the Stargate looming over them menacingly. Cassandra's pictures were indeed pretty sophisticated things these days, so she'd drawn in his and Carter's MP-5s just fine. The O'Neill in the picture had his gun in his right hand, leaving his left hand free to hold tight to Daniel's right one, while Carter had her gun in her left hand so she could hold onto Daniel's left hand. Teal'c was standing next to Carter, staff weapon at the ready. Those four figures looked small under the shadow of the gate and the looming sun, but with Carter and Daniel sandwiched between him and Teal'c like that, they, at least, looked pretty safe, and Daniel, despite the lack of any gun in his arms, looked safest of all.

That was the way they'd led Cassandra through the Stargate that first time, so perhaps she thought that was how they always went out on missions: all holding hands so they couldn’t get separated. With him and Carter holding especially tight onto Daniel, the civilian, so he wouldn't get lost or hurt. Except Cassandra was wrong, of course. You needed two hands to hold an MP-5 properly, which didn't leave you one free to keep a grip on your teammates…

" Jack…! "

O'Neill flinched as he remembered Daniel screaming his name, struggling against his grip with no hope of ever getting free, no hope of the pain ever stopping. Carter with her lips blue-grey and her heart barely beating; of how it must have been for Teal'c to feel her slipping through his fingers minute by minute and be unable to do anything to save her.

Carter had made herself strong through training and sheer gut determination, although there must have been steel there in the first place because you didn't get to be a Major in your thirties without something inherently special. Daniel had never really lived in the physical world, as far as O'Neill could tell. He still had a very vivid memory of Daniel just standing there, looking dumbfounded, while O'Neill punched him. The idea of hitting O'Neill back had apparently never suggested itself to Daniel even once. Ducking didn't seem to have occurred to him either. Daniel lived in his head, and a crowded and fascinating place it obviously was, but there were times when O'Neill wasn't absolutely sure all the brain neurons were wired up properly to the rest of Daniel's body.

Daniel would go without sleep and food, and torture himself with guilt if anything happened to the rest of them that he felt he should have prevented, but he had no idea how it felt to be an officer, and even less idea how it felt to be someone who had been born strong, with all the responsibilities that carried. Even Carter didn’t know what a burden that was. Only he and Teal'c had been given the key to that particular box. Screw noblesse oblige: strength carried obligations too, and first among those was the obligation to keep those weaker than yourself safe from harm. He had spent all those years fighting what he hoped was a just fight to defend the innocent from those that might hurt them, and in doing so had brought into his home the means by which his son had lost his life. Could you still call yourself a defender of innocents when you'd caused the death of your own child?

He'd walked in once just as Cassandra had asked Daniel if O'Neill and Teal'c had killed people. Daniel had told her they'd all killed people. It wasn't something any of them liked to do, but sometimes when you believed in something you ended up having to do things you didn't necessarily want to do because of it. He believed the Goa'uld were evil and shouldn't be allowed to make slaves of other people, and he was prepared to kill to stop that happening if he had to.

"But you're not the same as Jack and Teal'c."

"No." Daniel moistened his lips. "I'm not a warrior. I'm a…communicator. But we've all had to do each other's jobs at times. Jack's been an ambassador, and I've been a soldier. That's just the way it goes sometimes."

"How many people have you killed?"

"Too many."

"How many is too many?"

"Any amount is too many. It's not something any of us wants to do."

"Not even Jack and Teal'c?"

"Teal'c wants to free his people. Jack…Jack just wants to keep the whole planet and everyone on it safe, especially you, and Janet, and the three of us."

Cassandra had given Daniel what O'Neill's grandmother would have termed a very old-fashioned look. "Can he do that?"

"No. He can't." Daniel had been briskly matter-of-fact. "But if he's not careful, he's going to die trying." That was when he'd turned to look at O'Neill with a candid gaze, and O'Neill realized Daniel had known he was there all the time.

Grimacing at the memory, O'Neill looked back down at the picture in his hands. Yeah, okay, Daniel, you got me. I want to keep all of us safe, all the time, and maybe it is impossible, but it's also my job. And the last mission out, I didn't do it very well. Which was why we had to send out for the Tok'ra to put Carter and Teal'c back together again. And just as there are things about you which I am never going to understand in a million years, there are things about me you are never going to understand. You think you know me? How can you when half the time I don't even know myself.

Sometimes the thing he found the most difficult about his teammates was their need for explanations; their lack of shared references. That was what happened in life, of course. You grew up with kids who lived in the same streets you lived in, knew the same people you knew, hungered after the same baseball cards, cast covert glances at the same new girl from Nevada whose blonde hair was so long when she let it out of braids she could sit on it. They were the same age as you were, and on the whole their parents were the same age that yours were too. You battled the same curfews, abided or didn't abide by the same lights out, did or didn't do the same homework. Explanations were unnecessary.

Carter and Daniel were both too young to realize the way the late Sixties had hit people of his generation. You moved away from a home-life where at least from your surface view of it, Mom baked, read magazines, tried to get her hair to look just like Jackie Kennedy's, and got excited about her latest appliance, into an entirely different universe. One where the colors were dazzling and the freedom literally took your breath away. You never even realized how many rules you'd been unconsciously abiding by until suddenly you could break them. The only thing that had ever come close to the Seventies in his experience, was stepping through the Stargate, and even then he wasn't sure that the colors in San Francisco hadn't been a little brighter.

General Hammond would recognize his childhood. They could both smile at the way the world had altered; grimace at the prejudices that had been commonplace in their youth; recognize the need for vigilance. Carter understood the military; knew how it felt to be an Air Force brat; the reason why you didn't give back talk to someone with higher rank than you, even if you thought the guy was a moron. Understood that rank was something earned, and you didn’t get too many guys with stars on their shoulders who hadn't earned it the hard way. Teal'c knew how it felt to take life; to wonder if you'd ever had the right; to kill and be afraid you were on the wrong side; to watch friends die and keep moving forward. He'd done the Jaffa equivalent of zipping someone he'd shared a drink with into a bodybag. He knew how it felt. As far as the military went, Teal'c and Carter were like the school friends who hadn't needed explanations.

But none of them had really got the flower power bit, although the Stargate and that solar flare might have filled in that era of his life for them a little. They'd got to wear the clothes, meet the people, see the psychedelic colors, hopefully they'd even got a whiff of the freedom; the sense that anything was possible then; that finally the world didn't just belong to the politicians, and the generals, that perhaps it might belong to everyone. Or maybe it had just been like a trip to the zoo for Daniel and Carter. A fun day out. Or perhaps it had just left Daniel even more confused than before as to why O'Neill had chosen to pick up a gun instead of sticking a flower in its barrel.

Daniel had never asked him why he had chosen to become part of the military, which was a relief, because he wasn't sure he could answer him, not easily anyway. He could tell him the events that had led up to it; the ones that had seemed to make it impossible for him to head in any other direction; but even now he couldn't tell him why someone who thought of himself as a freethinker and a rebel had joined an institution like the United States Air Force and immediately felt as if he'd finally found a faith he could believe in. He only knew that whenever he spent time with someone like Harry Maybourne he wondered if he'd done the wrong thing, and every time he spent time with George Hammond he knew he'd done right.

But was any of his past still relevant when the only other person who'd shared that all-important decade wasn't even a part of his life any more? He spent his days with people who only knew him as someone divorced, childless, Air Force. Did that mean the child O'Neill was no longer relevant; the hippy O'Neill; the father O'Neill. Did any of those people still matter if he was the only person who remembered them?

He missed Charlie so much sometimes it hurt right to the ends of his hair. People who'd never had children didn't know how much you loved them. Some of them still thought 'love' was that hormonal rush you got in the schoolyard when Carina Kolbach let you carry her books home. They didn't know it was something that made your heart swell with so much happiness sometimes you were afraid it was going to burst. Something filled to the brim that nevertheless kept getting topped up even higher. The way you had to go back in there and look in that crib one more time, even though you'd been in there ten minutes ago, because that baby was so perfect in every possible detail. The way you had to drink in the smell of him; inhale him; the incredible joy when fingers wrapped themselves around yours; when eyes focused and finally saw you; the first time you came in and he crawled straight for you, gurgling a welcome. All those memories; all that history; all those days he should have been able to spend with his son; all those grandchildren he was never going to have now…

"Jack…?"

He was shocked by the sound of his own name. For a while he'd forgotten he wasn't alone in the house. He looked up to find Daniel swamped by a robe that looked vaguely familiar. Oh yes, he remembered it now. Aunt Rose's last Christmas present. She had always been under the impression that he took XXL in everything. She hadn’t seen him in decades so probably only remembered him as the boy who'd always wanted second helpings of cake. She'd clearly decided a lot of his growth over the years would have been outwards. Even though Daniel had folded the sleeves over, he was fighting a losing battle against swathes of tartan polycotton.

"You look ridiculous."

"Your heating's gone off." Daniel belted the robe defiantly. "It's cold."

"It's four in the morning." Nevertheless he got up and crossed over to switch the heating back on.

"Can I put a light on?"

O'Neill looked around to see Daniel with his fingers outstretched towards the tablelamp. He sighed in mock exasperation. "Heat. Light. What else do you want?"

Daniel switched on the light, making them both blink from the sudden brightness. Daniel was watching him warily from under his lashes. A year ago Daniel could have sheltered behind his hair as well, but there was nowhere for him to hide now his face was all exposed planes; the short hair making those expressive eyes appear even larger. "Coffee."

"Well there's a shocker."

He was already limping towards the kitchen; another damned conditioned response; toddler Charlie asking for his bottle; adult Daniel pining for his coffee. He was sure it all fitted into the cosmic oneness of everything: a kid saw his parents crushed to death right in front of him; a father found the body of his son with a bullet in his head and blood making a mulberry pool on the carpet; but, no, it was all just hunky dory because one day that orphaned kid was going to grow up to be a waif and stray genius whom the grieving father could just tuck under his wing, and wasn't that a happy ending for everyone all round? No, it freakin' wasn't. That didn't give Daniel back his childhood; and it sure as hell didn't give him closure for having caused the death of his son. Daniel being alive and well didn't fill that Charlie-shaped hole in his life. It just filled the Daniel-shaped hole that had been in his life when he'd thought he'd lost him.

"Are you okay?"

Daniel had followed him into the kitchen, still watching him with that wary expression.

O'Neill looked down at Daniel's bare feet in exasperation. "Put something on your feet."

Daniel's toes curled up defensively but he persisted: "Are you okay?"

"No." O'Neill looked him the eye. "I'm not. Happy now? Can we drop the subject?"

Oh great, now Daniel looked as if he'd slapped him. O'Neill felt the guilt twinge like an old bullet wound. Swearing under his breath, he looked around for the washing he'd taken out of the dryer earlier. He snatched up the first pair of clean socks he came to and tossed them to him. "Put those on. The floor's cold."

Daniel wobbled precariously on one leg as he pulled the first sock on and it was automatic to reach out and steady him. O'Neill had to close his eyes as the memories overwhelmed him. Teaching Charlie to sit down before he put his socks on so he wouldn't fall over. Teaching Charlie to tie his shoelaces. Teaching Charlie to play baseball. Daniel was always talking about lost knowledge. The tragedy of that damned library at Alexandria burning to the ground. The importance of remembering the past. Well sometimes lost knowledge wasn't something that would have benefited the whole of the human race. It sure as hell didn't matter to the rest of the species that Charlie O'Neill had only learned to hit a curve ball six months before he'd died; but it had mattered to him. And now it didn't matter to anyone because that boy and his ability to hit a home run had been dead for four years. Which was why sometimes it wasn't good to remember the past. Sometimes remembering the past was the very last thing you wanted to do. What had he told himself in that damned tel'tak? That he didn't want to forget how his son looked, or sounded, or smelt? Well, maybe he'd just been lying to himself again. Because maybe he did want to forget. Maybe he wanted to climb inside the biggest whiskey bottle he could find and forget he'd ever had a son who was now dead, buried, rotting, and could never grant him absolution.

"Jack…?"

He opened his eyes to find Daniel wincing from the tightness of his grip. Yes, that was pretty much what happened. You were so busy trying to keep them safe you hurt them in the process. O'Neill released him at once and took a step back, turning to the kettle, administering a mild punishment in the shape of instant coffee granules from a jar instead of the filter stuff Daniel wanted. How come Daniel could read the body language of white-painted little naked guys who depended on plants for their mental health, but he couldn't work out that the person he was probably closest to on the whole damned planet really wanted to be left alone with his thoughts right now?

"Here." He poured boiling water into the mug, gave it a brisk stir and then shoved it at Daniel. "Coffee."

"I think we should talk."

O'Neill stared at him in disbelief. "Sorry, were we ever married? Because I'm getting a real sense of déjà vu here."

Daniel returned his gaze unblinkingly for a moment. "Well if we were, I have to tell you the sex was very unmemorable."

He'd laughed before he could stop himself, just catching that flicker of a smile from Daniel, then shook his head and reached for the coffee beans and the grinder. He might as well have done so ten minutes before really, it would have been a more gracious way of bowing to the inevitable.

As O'Neill slumped back onto his couch with a sigh of resignation, he wondered idly from which side of the family Daniel had inherited his stubbornness. His mother he suspected. Daniel had always seemed to him to possess the sort of indivertible determination normally only displayed by women and rivers. And it was effective, which was why they were now both wide awake, sipping their freshly brewed coffee, looking at each other sideways, and preparing to have an in-depth conversation about the subject of Daniel's choice. Daniel had even managed to nab the armchair for himself. Well wasn't that just typical?

"Okay," he shrugged resignedly, "let's hear it." What's it going to be, Daniel? The pep talk about what a great leader I am? The reminder that we're all alive and well, and what do you know, it's all down to me. The trouble is, we've moved on, and you don't know it. Unless you can find a way to make my son forgive me for his death, then tonight there's really nothing to talk about.

"You lied to me."

That came out of nowhere and took his breath away. O'Neill stared at him in disbelief, the injustice of it making him gape like a beached fish. He hadn't said one word, not one word of reproach about Daniel going off to that temple after he'd been told not to, and so starting the whole chain of events that had led to them all damned near dying. He'd figured the guy getting horribly tortured to the point where his mind snapped was more than punishment enough, and anyway, Daniel would be beating himself up about that far too much anyway. But all the same, it was very difficult not to snap back something he would later regret when he was asked to swallow that without a protest.

O'Neill took a strengthening sip of coffee. Ow, that was hot. He'd have a burn on his tongue now. How the hell could Daniel drink his when it was still scalding; the guy must have an asbestos throat. Daniel was still looking at him with reproach in his eyes. Oh yes, they were talking about the terrible thing O'Neill had done in telling a white lie to try to coax his friend back from the brink. Sometimes Daniel was lovable and sometimes, such as now, he was just damned unreasonable, spoiled, and so busy thinking about the high moral questions he lost sight of everything else. But, fine, Daniel wanted them to have this conversation; they could have this conversation. At least getting pissed off with Daniel for being such an annoying little sonofabitch was less lacerating than wondering if his son would have been so keen to get his hands on his service revolver if O'Neill hadn't always made such a big deal about guns being something Charlie was never allowed to touch.

O'Neill cleared his throat. "You wanna run that by me again?"

"You lied to me."

"No, Daniel, I didn't lie to you. The person I lied to wasn't you. That was the point. The guy we got back from those priests wasn't Daniel Jackson, it was someone else altogether. I lied to him to try to get you back again."

"When I woke up, Jack, and asked you what had happened, you lied to me ."

O'Neill ran a hand through his greying hair. "Okay, maybe I did. But I was just trying to…" He didn't actually say that 'keep you safe', skittering away from the words at the last second. "I was afraid that if you remembered what they'd done to you, you'd go like…that again. I had to make a decision."

"Well it was the wrong decision."

As Daniel continued to gaze at him with a set face and betrayed eyes, O'Neill felt the exasperation increase. Made worse because somehow Daniel was managing to guilt-trip him. He was getting a hundred and fifty watt reproach from those baby blues and it was working. He was starting to believe that he'd been wrong back there, after all. Okay, he'd always known he'd been wrong back there. He knew how much Daniel trusted him. How important it was to the guy to know that whatever else happened Jack O'Neill would never lie to him. The guilt flared, spiked.

"Damnit, Daniel, I don't pretend to be infallible. You know better than anyone how often I've been wrong. I'm not God here, you know. I'm just a guy trying to do the right thing, and sometimes I get it wrong. And maybe I got it wrong this time. Maybe I should have told you the truth. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for being human."

Daniel's face didn't flicker. "So, you're saying the great Jack O'Neill is fallible and human and can make mistakes like ordinary mortals?"

"Yes!"

"And I shouldn't blame you for getting it wrong from time to time?"

"Damned right."

"So, if, for instance, you forgot to take the bullets out of your gun one day, and you maybe forgot to turn the key in the lock on a desk drawer because you’d done it a hundred times before and just this once you forgot, that would be something someone who was fallible and human could be forgiven for doing, isn't it?"

All those years in Black Ops, all those years of doing damned distasteful things for the US Military, while watching for a sniper every minute of every day, and yet he hadn't noticed that deadfall. Daniel, the world's most amateur soldier, had dug the pit and walked him right into it and he hadn't seen it coming once. O'Neill felt as though someone had punched him in the solar plexus. He gasped, "What?"

"Because you're only human, right, Jack? And human beings are allowed to make mistakes. They can be forgiven for making mistakes?"

O'Neill could feel the blood beating in his veins, a faint hissing in his ears, the sea over shale, back and forth across a pebbly beach. God, don't say he was going to throw up. Abruptly, Daniel was across the room and sitting next to him, like he had in Netu, like he had on the tel'tak, Daniel's right side against his left, a comfort he could feel.

"You made a mistake, Jack. The most important thing in the world to me is my belief that I can trust you, that you will never ever lie to me, whatever the circumstances, and you did lie to me, you looked me right in the eye and you lied to me, and it really hurts. But you did it to save my life, and I forgive you. I forgive you as long as you forgive my friend because he didn't take the bullets out of his gun and he didn't turn the key on the desk drawer, because it was so long ago, and he's paid for it so very much, and he's only human and he's entitled to make mistakes. We're all entitled to make mistakes."

O'Neill pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes until the blackness gave way to a kaleidoscope pattern of flashing lights.

"Please, Jack," said Daniel softly. "Please…?"

Keeping his hands where they would hide anything he didn't want anyone seeing, O'Neill said, "Damnit, Daniel…"

"You said it, Jack: you're not God and you're not infallible, and no one ever expected you to be. No one except you. So – please …?"

"All right!" O'Neill pulled his hands away angrily. He knew Daniel was right. He hated Daniel's habit of being right but he recognized when he was. "I made a mistake and my son died. But even though my son died, it was still only a mistake."

"And…?"

O'Neill snarled but then said more quietly, "And I'm only human and I'm entitled to make mistakes."

"Thank you," Daniel breathed softly.

O'Neill looked at him sideways and saw that Daniel looked as exhausted as he felt. Like they'd both just run a marathon while having someone suck the blood straight out of their veins. Part of him wanted to hug Daniel and part of him really wished he had thrown that crutch at his head when Daniel had hidden the keys to his jeep. He snatched a breath he really seemed to need. "That was always what this was about, wasn't it? You were always setting me up for this."

Daniel ran a hand through his hair and then returned his gaze. "Face it, O'Neill, you are way out of your league here. Didn't I ever tell you? People killed to get me on their debating teams in college."

"So, all that stuff about me lying to you…?"

"No, that was true." Daniel let O'Neill read the truth in his eyes. "Every word of that was true. Did you never wonder who Apophis sent to ask me where the boy was?"

"Sha're. I figured it had to be Sha're."

"He sent you. He sent the person I trusted most in the world, to whom it would be the hardest for me to say no. And I did say no to you, but it nearly killed me, and the worst thing was looking in your eyes and knowing you were lying to me. So don't ever lie to me again, Jack. However bad the truth is, I'd still rather hear it from you, because if I can't trust you, I can't trust anything."

There was a moment's silence before Daniel put his hands behind his head and shrugged. "Or if you do lie to me again and I find out about it, you'd better be prepared to do some serious groveling if you ever want me to speak to you again. Clear?"

"As crystal." O'Neill darted him a sideways look. "What kind of groveling?"

"Oh…the most humiliating kind I can think of."

"I'm not going to be able to square it with a bag of cookies then?"

"Jack, you're not going to be able to square it with a case of cookies." Daniel picked up his coffee cup then looked around. "Actually, do you have any cookies?"

"It's four in the morning," O'Neill protested.

"Well, I'm hungry."

Shaking his head, O'Neill limped towards the kitchen. "I thought you were supposed to be waiting on me ?"

Daniel was already reaching for the TV remote. As he switched it on, he said over his shoulder, "Janet said I was to make sure you exercised your leg. What number is the History Channel?"

O'Neill automatically refilled the Mr. Coffee with one hand while searching in the cupboard for the cookies with the other. "I have no idea, and it doesn't matter because we're going to be watching ESPN." He said it with great emphasis in the hope that might make it more likely to happen.

Looking at the back of that shorn head as Daniel tuned out that ESPN reference with the skill of long practice, it occurred to him that he and Daniel had just the wrong age gap between them: not enough to be father and son; too big to be brothers. Nothing in common except their recent past. So perhaps it was just as well their recent past had involved living through the kind of events that bonded you together like superglue. Their relationship was like some tropical flower; superheated into existence at five times normal speed. They had met under extraordinary circumstances; they had been thrown into a life and death situation when they barely knew one another, and had come out of it a little too close for comfort.

It was disconcerting to find there was someone with whom you had nothing in common who nevertheless knew you better than anyone else on the planet. Even more disconcerting to find that you, who had never exactly been a student of human nature, suddenly knew another guy as well as you'd known your own son; could read from his body language when he was tired, hurting, pissed off, concealing something, or happy all the way to his toes. He'd never signed up to be Daniel's best friend. It had just happened. And he had no other relationship for reference. It wasn't like the friendship he'd shared with Brian Hickson back in Chicago; it wasn't like the friendship he'd had with Kawalsky; and it wasn't like the friendship he had with Carter, or Teal'c. It was a little like his relationship with Sara; a little like his relationship with Charlie; but even then, not really enough for reference. His friendship with Daniel was uncharted waters, with sharks, dangerous undercurrents, and a couple of whirlpools. You couldn't analyze it, or understand it, or catalogue it; you just lived with it. And sometimes you even remembered to be grateful for it. Now, was definitely one of those times.

As he put the cookies on a plate, he saw that Daniel was flipping through the channels, exactly the way he'd always told Charlie not to because it would ruin his eyes. O'Neill caught a glimpse of something that definitely looked like a football game but then they were seven channels past: a cheetah chasing an antelope; a couple of guys rafting down rapids; something underwater that Daniel hovered on for a second until a shark swam past and he moved on; a game show; a documentary about the FBI; a confession show with He Seduced Her Mother and Her Sister written up underneath some guy with sideburns and tattoos that Daniel skipped on from so fast O'Neill barely had time to read the caption; another blink-and-he'd-missed-it glimpse of a football game, and then his 'Hey!' of protest was lost in the crackle of atmospheric music. He saw black and white film of a smoky interior and caught a compelling glimpse of satin-covered curves.

"Hold it!" He piled the