TITLE: Ripples
AUTHOR: ELG
AUTHOR PAGE: ELG
CATEGORY: Hurt/Comfort
SPOILERS: Shades Of Gray. (NB MAJOR SPOILERS for this episode. Don't read this story unless you've seen Shades of Gray or don't mind being spoiled as it gives away all the good bits.) Minor Spoilers for other first, second and third season episodes up to SOG, including 'Fire & Water', 'Jolinar's Memories', 'Need' and 'The Serpent's Lair'.
SEASON / SEQUEL: Season 3, second half.
RATING: R (See Content Warnings for explanation.)
CONTENT WARNINGS: A major character is tortured. Although the injuries he receives are not life threatening the person involved is still not having a very nice time and people might not want to read about it. There is some minor bad language (half of the story is told from Jack's POV). The violence and language are probably more like PG but there are also some sexual implications in things said, suggested, and threatened. None of our heroes are raped, mutilated, or killed, but SG-1 don't exactly have a fun time either.
SUMMARY: After the events of 'Shades of Gray' Daniel is kidnapped by a rogue NID offshoot and the rest of SG-1 are caught up in a desperate race against time to save him.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was originally going to be a ten page Missing Scene/Epilogue to Shades of Gray. The fact that it is now a 78 page story is entirely due to Brenda Anders who made me write it this way instead. (Okay, Jack? Got that? So don't come after me, go after her.) I had *huge* amounts of editorial help first from Brenda while writing it and then from Joyce who went through it with her magic editor's pen for me. This literally could not have been written without them. (So, again, if you hate it, blame them not me.) As always I also had lots of encouragement and help from Cathy and Bri. This is my first attempt at an out-and-out hurt/comfort story so feel free to let me know how I can do better next time.

Great. I flush out the traitor, capture the rogue SGC team, and single-handedly restore diplomatic relations with our alien allies and what happens? Danny Boy is seriously pissed with me. I'm not saying I'm Carter or Teal'c's favorite person in the universe at the moment, but they are just mildly irritated compared with Daniel.

Who could have guessed how good the boy was at sulking? Not that he's admitting he's sulking, of course. No, he always stomps around with his nose in the air, walking out of rooms as I walk into them and suddenly having urgent appointments every time I suggest perhaps he and I really need to have a little talk…? And I'm sorry I lied to him. I'm sorry I didn't tell him what was going on as it obviously hurt his feelings so much. But I'm not sorry I didn't get him exposed to possible God Knows What by Maybourne's goons.

Does he have any idea how dangerous this could have turned out to be? Not just for me - for everyone? If anyone's reaction to me throwing a temper tantrum had been even a beat off, that would have been it. And I know how NID work. They would still have taken the bait because - with all due modesty - having me on board would have been too tempting to ignore. But they would also have given themselves a nice little back-up plan, like kidnapping the civilian on my team, torturing him to make him spill what he knew, and holding him somewhere with a gun to his head to ensure my co-operation. That was the scenario I was worried about when General Hammond and I first talked this one through and that was partly why we decided I couldn't tell Daniel, Carter, and Teal'c a damned thing. I'm not saying it would have occurred to me to keep them out of things if the Asgard hadn't made it a demand, but once I'd been told having their assistance wasn't an option, I could see there were benefits as well as drawbacks to going this one alone. When Hammond and I were chewing it over, I said I'd do it as long as my team was kept safe. Which meant I wanted a special eye kept on Daniel because he was never going to buy me behaving the way I was going to have to. He'd worry away at the problem like a terrier with a rat, and if he worked out what was really going on, he'd not only screw up the whole operation, he could get himself seriously hurt.

So, okay, his feelings got hurt instead, and I'm really sorry about that, but I didn't mean anything I said to him and I've told him so. I've told him the house was bugged. I've told him our friendship is solid as a rock… And it's no good. I'm going to have to go round to his place and do some serious groveling.

I've actually made a list of all the things I need to apologize for because I keep getting all these little twinges of memory: Daniel working on his presentation to the Tollans, for instance, for about ten days solid. It had seemed like a reasonable place for me to start, as he put it, 'acting out' when the General and I were talking it over. The Tollans had made it clear on two previous occasions they wouldn't share their technology with us come what may so whatever presentation we made, however logical we were, however nicely we asked, it wouldn't seem suspicious when Chancellor Trevel told us No Way, José. Of course, what the General and I should have thought of and hadn't was that even though it was an impossible task we were setting Daniel, he would still give it his best shot. And he did. Ten days of digging through precedents and fine-tuning his arguments while I tried to persuade him to come out with me for a pizza, a beer, anything rather than have to walk around the base knowing he was working his guts out for something I was intending to screw up when he was about six words in.

When, in the 'gateroom, he said 'So, just to clarify…?' I knew what was coming, and I still get hot stabs of guilt when I remember his expression. Oh boy. That is not a face you want turned in your direction: pursed up mouth, accusing eyes, hurt little boy body language. I mean Carter didn't look like she exactly wanted to fling her arms around my neck but she was a welcome mat compared to Daniel.

Daniel had it right when he talked about that 'friendship thing we've been working on'. Our friendship didn't come about by chance. It wasn't two minds meeting like it was with him and Carter, or two warriors recognizing something about each other like it was with me and Teal'c; this was two guys with squat in common who could have screwed up a very fragile friendship at any point and almost did several times. My friendship with Daniel is like that damned vine Sara was always trying to grow on the porch, which needed more care than a newborn baby. Too much sun and it would shrivel before you knew it, and too much frost and the damned thing would wither to a blackened stalk. This is a friendship built on him not rubbing my nose in how much cleverer he is than I am, and me not rubbing his nose in what a lousy soldier he makes. It's based on me learning to bite my tongue and him not taking offence on the occasions when I don't. And it's changed. Daniel and I aren't the same people we used to be when we first met. Our relationship was probably less complicated then although we were still feeling our way. It's been placed under a lot of pressure over the years, but it's always come through and been stronger for it. I'm not so sure about this time. I'm not sure Daniel can see the necessity for me doing what I did - not the saving diplomatic relations with our alien allies stuff, I have no doubt at all he sees the necessity for that - but telling him I could never relate to him and our friendship didn't have any foundation. That's something he is not going to get over in a hurry.

It's not what I said, of course, it's that I knew to say it. I had to get Daniel the hell out of my house in the quickest possible time. I had to stop him thinking about why I was acting so out of character. I had to stop him realizing everything I was saying was a total crock I could never have believed in at any point. And I definitely had to stop him mentioning any of the above aloud where Maybourne and his pals could hear him. So I picked the quickest, dirtiest route I could think of to stop Daniel thinking and get him feeling. I hit him as hard as I could and as low as I could, and it damned near killed me. I still get a cold trickly feeling down my spine when I think of the frozen look on his face after I'd told him we were strangers and everything we'd been through meant nothing to me.

But what Daniel really can't forgive is me knowing how much that would hurt him, because the last few months I'd say he's become pretty sure about his… I was going to say his 'place in my affections' but that makes it sound like we're engaged or something. He knows I wouldn't exactly wave him goodbye from the SGC with a song in my heart and a smile on my lips, anyway. He knows he means a lot to me and I'd miss him like crazy if he left. I did have a few nasty moments after Sha're died thinking that was exactly what Daniel was going to up and do. I pussyfooted around him and worried about him and generally acted like someone who really didn't like the idea of losing his best friend. And I think it did Daniel a lot of good. Despite our little…ahem…altercation about Ke'ra, not to mention our week long disagreement about the likelihood of Sha're having told Daniel where her son was through the ribbon device while the Goa'uld within her was frying his brain, what came out of all those little…contretemps was the realization Daniel mattered a hell of a lot to me. And I don't mind him knowing that. Maybe there was a time when I thought him realizing how important he'd become to me was not a good thing, but that was practically a lifetime ago now, and I'm fine with Daniel Jackson knowing Jack O'Neill would miss him like hell if he went.

The trouble is, Daniel Jackson is obviously not okay with Jack O'Neill knowing Daniel Jackson would miss him like hell if he went. Having had three months without me, I think Daniel was feeling that was something he could cope with. Except he'd always known I was coming back, of course. Unlike me. I didn't. I thought I'd lost the SGC and my own past, present and future forever. But Daniel knew sooner or later the Nox or the Tollans would be able to get me back from Edora, and knowing that, he coped pretty well with me being gone and thought that meant he could manage without me if he had to. But knowing someone is going to be away for a while is not the same as having him exit from your life forever.

If you'd asked Daniel ten days ago, I'd bet you he would have said he knows me better than I know myself. That there wasn't anyone who knew me better than him. And I would have said he was right, to be honest. And he is way smarter than I am. Like I told the General, a plan that involved me out-thinking a suspicious Daniel Jackson while trying to convince him I was someone I wasn't sounded like a plan pretty much doomed to failure to me. The General did what he always does: he told me to give it my best shot.

That scene with the beer and the chess-set and Daniel looking like I'd slapped him was my best shot, and I'm telling you people have won Oscars for a lot less. But it had to be good. It had to be convincing. Anything less and Daniel would have been onto what we were up to in a heartbeat.

But he'd finally thought we'd got this relationship balanced out so I needed him more than he needed me, and he knew me better than I knew him and we worked together very comfortably, listened to each other's opinion, trusted each other; exactly the kind of civilized, rational, reasonable relationship he'd always wanted us to have. Then I told him we not only didn't have it, we'd never had it. He didn't see it coming and it hit him like a staff weapon blast. And the fact I knew it was going to hit him like that and banked on it to get him to do what I wanted him to do - which was get up and get the hell out - is something I'm not sure Daniel is ever going to forgive me for.

However, that isn't on my list. That isn't something I can bring up. So today we're going to talk about how sorry I am he spent so long working on a presentation to convince the Tollans to share their technology with us when General Hammond and I knew from the start he was never going to be able to deliver it. Oh yes, and cookies. I'd like to go get him something significant and difficult like the Blue Rose of Forgetfulness or a feather from a phoenix's tail, because I think that's the level of gesture he's looking for right now, but not having any idea how to get either of those or what the hell he'd do with them if I did get them for him, I'm going to offer him cookies and groveling for now.

Odd how your perspective can change in a few seconds. As I reached out to ring Daniel's doorbell, the most important thing in the world seemed to be persuading him I was sincerely sorry I'd hurt his feelings and could we please be friends again…? When the door opened from the pressure of my index finger on the bell, swung back slowly to reveal the overturned coffee table, the broken phone, and the smear of blood on the carpet, I would have given a year's pay to have a Daniel who wouldn't speak a goddamned word to me standing right in front of me with his arms wrapped around his chest, his mouth pursed up, and his eyes full of hurt. To be honest, I would have settled for Padded Cell Daniel crying in the corner just as long as I knew he was going to be sane again eventually. I would have settled for any Daniel, in any condition, any state of mind, and any state of friendship with me, just as long as he was still alive.

The crime scene boys have finished now and can tell us there were two intruders; that there's no sign of a forced entry; that nothing was stolen. Nothing was stolen except Daniel. Apparently the blood on the edge of the phone is Daniel's. So is the blood on the carpet. They seemed to have hit him with the handset right after they ripped the wire out of the wall. He was probably unconscious as he hit the floor. No one saw anything; heard anything; suspected anything.

I'd asked him over for a Friday night in at my place to drink beer, eat pizza. Not talk very much, maybe watch some sport he wouldn't be able to follow which I would insist on explaining even though we both knew by now he is never going to grasp the rules. He'd given me one of his tight little smiles and said he was busy. Sorry. Lot of work to do, he was a little behind. I'd thought of all the work he'd done on the Tollan appeal, all those hours he'd put in for no good reason, and I hadn't had the heart to argue. If I'd argued, if I'd said: 'Damnit, Daniel, stop punishing me for doing my job, will you?' at least it would have been out in the open. Maybe he would have come over after all. Maybe he wouldn't be wherever he is right now in whatever condition he's in…

"Jack?" I glanced up from the floor to find the general looking at me compassionately.

"Sir?"

"We're not doing any good here."

I looked down and noticed I was holding a bowl in my hands. I didn't know if it was the one Daniel and Sha're had drunk from on their wedding day. Daniel has a few little bowls around and I couldn't tell which was which. I didn't know the names of the swords on his wall either. That was one of those things I'd been going to ask him about. Someday.

"He's not dead, Jack," Hammond said gently.

I swallowed and put the bowl down. "Why not?" My voice sounded harsh. "If Maybourne wanted to pay us back, killing Daniel would work wouldn't it? I mean, you and me aren't having a very good time right now, are we?"

I felt his hand on my shoulder. "Doctor Jackson is going to be fine. We're going to find out who took him and where they took him to, and we're going to get him back."

That should have been my line. I do a good eternal optimist. But standing in Daniel's apartment staring at the bloodstain on his carpet, somehow the words wouldn't come.

Hammond was still right next to me, like he knew if he moved an inch away I was going to start blaming him, the Asgard, the stupid rulebook. Myself. He went on quietly, "They think it was a scalp wound - they always bleed a lot even if the wound is superficial. If their intention was to kill him they would have left the body here. They wanted him alive, Jack, which means he's still alive, and we will get him back. But right now you and I need to get back to the base and fill in Major Carter and Teal'c on what information we have so far."

"Well, that shouldn't take long," I said abruptly. "Seeing as what we have so far is zip."

I looked around at his apartment and thought of those two suitcases that had been left on the base when I came back from Abydos. After I'd filled in my report to say Daniel was dead, they'd been going to put them in a storage locker somewhere, but I'd managed to get permission to take them home with me. I'd had them in my loft for a year. So few possessions. Mostly books. A few photographs. A couple of old journals. You couldn't fit what he had now into two suitcases. If you had to start packing it all up, like we had to once before…

"Come on, Colonel." I felt a gentle pressure on my arm as Hammond began to tug me towards the doorway. "If you're going to find Doctor Jackson, you're going to need the rest of your team."

***

Daniel groaned and opened his eyes. He wasn't sure which he noticed first: the pain in his head or the sandpaper feel to his mouth, but within a few seconds he also became aware that his hands were tied behind his back, and he was in a moving vehicle of some kind. It felt like one of the SGC trucks. There was the same metallic smell and jolting lack of suspension, but somehow he doubted this was anyone's idea of a practical joke. Wincing, he raised his head and peered myopically at a dark interior. Definitely the back of a truck of some kind. And now he remembered a little more.

He couldn't recall if it was a written or an unwritten rule he couldn't wear his uniform off base because he'd never read the rules and probably wouldn't have seen the point of them if he had. But he knew it was something the Air Force didn't like him doing, which, given the way he was feeling at the moment, seemed like a good enough reason for doing it. As he walked determinedly towards the exit lift in his t-shirt, BDUs and jacket, he noticed General Hammond take one look at him and duck out of sight. The general had been avoiding him for the past week even though Daniel had been trying to have a little chat about why exactly the general had felt it necessary to stage all those faked arguments between Jack and himself in front of the rest of SG-1, not to mention the little detail of them being placed under the command of Colonel Robert Makepeace without so much as a by-your-leave…

Daniel had been half-hoping the sight of a civilian brazenly wearing his uniform out into the sunlit world above the mountain might have lured the general into a discussion, but it seemed if it came to a choice between letting Daniel break the rules or having to hold a conversation with him about his and Jack's recent subterfuge, well then Daniel could borrow a tank and drive it around in a full Rear-Admiral's costume for all General Hammond cared. Unsure whether to be more annoyed or obscurely pleased both Jack and the general evidently feared his wrath enough to be tiptoeing around him several days after the event, Daniel stomped into the elevator and pressed the button.

"Hold the door!"

He did so automatically, hand shooting out to obey but was immediately annoyed with himself for doing so just because Jack asked him to.

He saw the man give him a sideways glance, taking in the clothes he was wearing. Jack's mouth open to form a question and close again. After a long pause, he said, "So, Daniel are you doing anything tonight?"

Daniel stared fixedly at the panel for a moment at those red numbers clicking up sub-level after sub-level, then said conversationally, "Do you know SG-6 think you and I are dating?"

He'd thought that would take the wind out of the other man's sails very effectively, but Jack just frowned and said, "Daniel, I hate to break it to you, but half the SGC thinks we're dating. Who the hell cares?"

Curious, Daniel couldn't resist asking, "Which half?"

"The half that doesn't think Carter and I are dating or you and Carter are dating or Doc Fraiser and I are dating or Carter and Doc Fraiser are dating or you and I are both dating Teal'c. Don't you listen to gossip?"

"Sam and Janet? Really? You and me both dating Teal'c? What, like a…?" Daniel collected his wits. He and Jack had just slipped straight into their old comfortable rhythm for a minute and he wasn't ready to let that happen yet. "Actually, I am busy tonight," he said after a pause. "Sorry. I got a little behind on my work." What with wasting ten days on a presentation you were never going to let me present. Thanks a bunch, Jack.

He saw Jack wince and knew the man had got the unspoken sentence just as loud and clear as the rest of his speech. They rode up the rest of the way in silence, changed elevators still in a sort of silence - albeit the sort interrupted by Jack humming awkwardly and shooting him little assessing glances as he evidently tried to figure out the right way to play this situation. Daniel determinedly kept his eyes averted. As you know me so damned well, Jack, you should know how to get back in my good books, shouldn't you? You don't need any help from me. They even walked to the car park together in silence. Daniel tried not to mind one bit how sad and bereft Jack looked as Daniel got into his own car, reversing out with a tight little wave as he headed for his own home and left Jack to go to his. It wasn't as though he ever enjoyed the Friday night ritual that much anyway. He didn't like sports or beer or sleeping on Jack's couch. And he wasn't going to feel guilty, damnit; he was the wronged party here…

He'd driven home from the base feeling awkward in the clothes he never even thought about off-world. What the hell was he doing wearing fatigues anyway? He was a Doctor of Archaeology for crying out… Damn! He was not going to finish that thought. He was never going to admit he'd even had the thought. He was not going to start sounding like Jack O'Neill in even the privacy of his own head.

Daniel pulled off his boots and socks as he walked through the door, curling his bare toes in the carpet in the hope it would soothe him. It didn't. He hated the situation with Jack at the moment and it was coloring everything. He couldn't be comfortable anywhere while things were unresolved between them, and yet the only way to resolve them was for him to give in. Again. It felt like he was always giving in to Jack: Yes, they could take Jack's jeep instead of Daniel's car. All right they'd go to Jack's place even though his was closer because Jack had beer in the fridge - even though he didn't even like beer, damnit. All right he'd go out even though he had so much work to do because Jack was giving him his best begging look. And yes, they could watch the hockey game even though it bored him into a coma and there was something on another channel about the Book of the Dead, and…

Jack tended to give in on the big things: Yes, you can be on my team despite having no military experience whatsoever. Yes, we'll go save the world since you want it so much. Yes, you can come back on my team despite having proven yourself a flake of the first order who tried to kill me. Yes, we can go look for a child whose mystical powers I don't believe in just because you want it, Daniel… Which was why, he supposed, that he gave in on all the small things. There were just days when it felt like he was never going to be able to hang onto his self-respect - let alone hang onto Jack's respect - if he put up with too much of Jack's crap. How else could he register his disapproval when Jack pushed him too far except by… What the hell could you call it anyway? Withdrawing his friendship privileges? He'd wanted to register a protest, but he knew Jack would probably just interpret it as sulking. It wasn't achieving anything, and it was making him as miserable as it was making Jack. He should have just gone over to the man's house, drunk the damned beer, watched the damned hockey game, laid the damned ghost of the last time he'd been there when Jack had given him that dead-eyed stare and told him their friendship was meaningless. Without foundation.

Daniel winced at the memory. It was still too open, too raw. If Jack apologized again he was going to bite his head off because all that proved was the man knew how much those words had hurt. Well, Jack had no damned business knowing how much those words hurt. And yet as he obviously had known, how could he say them? How…?

This is how, Daniel. This is why. And you always knew why Jack did what he did.

Daniel looked around at his surroundings again, trying not to flinch from the pain in his head as he did so, the dark interior of a stripped out truck, the striated metal floor digging into his ribs, the flapping canvas at the back. The starry darkness beyond. The smell of gasoline and detergent. Detergent? Used to clean up the last passenger's blood or vomit or both, perhaps? This was what Jack had been trying to protect him from: being used as a pawn in someone else's chess game.

He'd moved the pieces. Jack had moved the pieces. They'd been halfway through a game, and yet Jack had just abandoned it unfinished and started a new one without consulting Daniel. That had felt like as much of a slap in the face as Jack's reluctance to let him in; worse really, because he'd known getting across the threshold would be tricky…

Get over it, Daniel! It wasn't real. This is real. Whoever grabbed you last night wasn't kidding.

Jack would be going nutso. He didn't have any doubt about that. Poor Jack. Bad stuff happening to his team always made him overreact. Teal'c and Sam wouldn't exactly be happy campers either. Come to think of it, he wasn't overjoyed himself. Getting whacked around the side of the head was not his idea of a fun evening. He didn't know if he'd been stupid or not. He had looked through the peephole, but men in military uniform weren't exactly something he tended to flinch from. He'd assumed they'd come from the general, that some artifact had come in needing to be examined ASAP. Then once they'd pushed their way in and told him to stay still and do exactly as he was told, or else, it had seemed only logical to at least try and get to the phone…

He was going to have to buy a new handset. The even bigger of the two - both had been big, after all, so you couldn't think of them in terms of big and not-so-big more like enormous and gargantuan - had snatched the phone out of his hands and hit him with it. He'd heard the plastic shatter as the floor came up to meet him. The last thing he'd seen as he hit the carpet was his balled-up socks poking out of his boots. They hadn't been a matching pair. He'd had no idea until that moment and had been disproportionately shocked by this proof of his abstraction. This business with him and Jack he supposed; he was sure he didn't usually wear odd socks: that would be too absent-minded professor…

Congratulations, Doctor Jackson. As ever I see you have your mind firmly focused on the essentials. The most important matter under consideration in a situation where you have been kidnapped and are now tied up in the back of the truck is definitely the fact you have started wearing odd socks…

Yeah well, he was probably concussed; his mind was entitled to wander a little. Anyway wasn't sarcasm supposed to be the lowest form of wit?

The truck pulled around a corner, sending him rolling across the metal floor into the metal wall. He grunted in pain as his hipbone connected with the side of the truck. Then grunted again as he was sent rolling back in the opposite direction to hit the other side of the truck. Damnit! That hurt! It didn't just hurt the bits of him getting thrown against unyielding metal, it also hurt his arms as he was forced to roll on them and…

Damnit! That really hurt!

He was sent rolling back the other way, even harder, thrown against the side of the truck to bounce off and land face first in the centre of the truck. Gritting his teeth as he tried not to whimper at the various bruises all yelling for his attention, Daniel became aware something was different. The vibrations had stopped. The truck had stopped.

Wherever his destination was, he had obviously arrived.

***

"Sir?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

I wish Carter would stop tippy-toeing around me like I'm a landmine she's afraid of stepping on. This is a small office and it isn't getting any bigger with her picking things up, putting them down again, starting to say things, and then shutting up before she finishes. I know a grizzly with a sore head is Yogi Bear compared with me right now. I also know the drill. Security cameras are being checked from every neighbor, storefront, and traffic cop. Police reports are being checked. Aerial reconnaissance videotape is being checked. Any damn thing anywhere that might possibly have caught on film even one frame of the guys who grabbed Daniel is being checked. Phone calls are being made. Favors are being called in. Strings are being pulled. And it all takes time, Colonel. And everyone's doing everything they can. And damn it to hell.

When I picked up the glass on the table and threw it at the wall, Carter winced as the shards scattered like wedding rice before pattering onto the floor, but she didn't look even slightly surprised. I darted her a sideways look. "What, you knew I was going to do that?"

"Having to sit around and wait for information is difficult for everyone."

"Go break a glass, Major."

She gave me one of those level looks which said there was so much crap she'd put up with because of my rank and the situation, but after that she was pulling IQ on me. "Does it help?"

I hate the way women always take refuge in logic when a situation gets tense. Sometimes I swear she and Doc Fraiser have way too much sense and not enough feeling. Except a second look tells me she's worried sick about Daniel as well, she's just not… What was that phrase Daniel used when he was trying to find out what the hell I was playing at? Even though he was actually insulting someone I was only pretending to be, it had still stung a little. Acting out indeed. If I ever pitch a hissy fit for real, he'd better not even think about telling me I'm just 'acting out'… Except he can tell me any damned thing he likes. He can tell me I'm a lousy friend, and I had no right to lie to him, and he hates me forever if he wants to just as long as he comes back and tells me to my face. Daniel, I will forgive you anything and everything except being dead.

I met Carter's gaze again and her eyes were full of compassion. Damnit, when did these three get to know me so well?

Feeling a little silly, I ran a hand through my hair. "Sorry, Major."

"It's okay, sir. We're all worried about Daniel." Daniel would probably have gone on and said: Of course the rest of us are managing to be worried about him without throwing glassware around, but if you feel the big dramatic gesture is appropriate, you go right ahead, Jack… But Carter obviously never kept up her Waspish Aside lessons the way Daniel has and so didn't add the rider.

Teal'c strode into the room like the Wrath of God. At least I've never actually experienced the Wrath of God on a private, one-to-one level, but I've always imagined it would look a little like a pissed off Jaffa in a confined space who has just been told beating the crap out of Harry Maybourne isn't an option at the moment, son. And how do I know it isn't an option at the moment? Because I have already suggested to General Hammond the merits of that particular strategy and been told it isn't on the agenda at the present time, Colonel. Right before the speech about jumping to conclusions and how everything that can be done will be done and yadda yadda yadda. I've never really pictured Teal'c as the Angel Gabriel, but I'm beginning to see how with a little training he could really nail the part. Teal'c sure as hell looked like he'd happily do a little smiting right now, and as he hadn't got a fiery sword he'd damned well settle for a staff weapon.

"This is taking too long, O'Neill," he said pointedly.

Carter opened her mouth to start on her speech beginning, "The general says…"

At the look we both gave her, she shrugged and gave up. I don't think her heart was really in it anyway.

"I'm very open to suggestions," I told him, equally pointedly.

"Colonel Maybourne."

"I'm not going against the general's orders, Teal'c. At least," I corrected myself, "not right away, anyway."

"Colonel Makepeace, then."

That got my attention straight away. I raised an enquiring eyebrow. "Makepeace?"

Teal'c returned my gaze unblinkingly. "Colonel Makepeace is a man of courage and integrity."

Carter frowned. "He's also a traitor, Teal'c. He was smuggling stolen alien artifacts back into the SGC and telling Maybourne everything that was happening in Cheyenne Mountain."

"And you've never liked him," I added as no one else seemed to be pointing out the obvious. "He told General Hammond you wouldn't say word one to him when he was put in charge of SG-1. In fact he said you and Daniel were both a monumental pain in the…mikta from the second Hammond told you he was your new C.O."

"Nevertheless," said Teal'c imperturbably, "he is a man who has shown loyalty to the SGC and to the struggle against the Goa'uld. He volunteered to rescue SG-1 when they were prisoners of Hathor. He believed stealing alien artifacts would help the people of this planet to defend themselves against the Goa'uld, however I do not think he would approve of any strategy involving the kidnap, torture or murder of a member of the SGC."

Carter said quickly, "We don't know Daniel's in any danger, Teal'c. They might not be intending to hurt him."

I turned to her to tell her sometimes one just has to look reality in the eye, and so was in time to see her give that meaningful little jerk of the head in my direction as she looked at Teal'c. Which was when I realized she was protecting me. Oh, I see, now I'm too fragile to be able to confront the truth about what those people are probably doing to Daniel? Damnit, I'm an Air Force colonel, not a maiden aunt. I know they're probably… Oh Christ, I keep seeing him kneeling on the floor of some concrete hangar in the middle of nowhere; gagged and blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back, knowing his last minute has come because of me. And some faceless son-of-a-bitch screwing on the silencer as he walks towards Daniel with an assassin's smile on his face…

Play the tape, Harry. Be a mensch. Daniel wasn't acting. Daniel didn't know. Don't kill him just to spite me. Make me pay for fooling you by some other method. Hurt me if you want to hurt someone. Don't take it out on Daniel when he didn't even know what I was doing. I lied to him to protect him from this. Don't kill him anyway, you son-of-a-bitch.

"O'Neill?"

I collected myself and looked up to find Teal'c and Carter both gazing at me like they were waiting for me to say something. I raised an eyebrow. "And? What? Who?"

"Makepeace, sir. Do you think he'd be more likely to talk to you or me?"

I got to my feet. "To me, Carter. It has to be me."

***

Daniel tensed as he heard the sound of heavy footsteps on gravel, the crunch-crunch of big men in big boots coming closer and closer. He presumed these were the two soldiers with attitude, the ones who could have got a job at Mackenzie's little health spa with no trouble at all. He'd never really liked really big men, the ones with doorway-filling shoulders and those expressions that suggested you were about as significant as bacteria because you'd never learned to throw a ball. Teal'c was the only exception to his personal rule of thumb. Teal'c's size and strength were a source of comfort and even a little vicarious pride. That was the difference between a Jaffa who was on your team and a jock who didn't want you on his team. He suspected the two thugs currently en route to get him had almost certainly been on their high school football teams, and had probably spent their formative years happily torturing would-be anthropologists in the locker room.

The tailgate dropped with a clatter. He felt the metal floor bend beneath the weight of the soldiers as they swung themselves up into the back of the truck. He tried to struggle onto his knees to see if he could lurch to his feet that way, but they had other ideas.

"Ow!" Daniel swore under his breath as fingers closed on the back of his jacket and jerked him roughly to his feet. The fingers transferred themselves to his hair and yanked his head back. "Ow!" he repeated pointedly as he stared up into a face that was curiously expressionless. He let his gaze flicker to his other kidnapper and saw the same mixture of military and mercenary in him: hair so short it must feel like moleskin. Odd that something which would feel so soft could look so hard; smooth cheeks without even a sprinkling of stubble; unblinking stares; photofit faces. There was nothing distinguishing about either of them except the slightly larger one had darker eyebrows than the other. They were like those stone heads the Olmec had left to baffle archaeologists. No wonder in those spy books he'd read as a child the bad guys always had eye-patches or limps or interesting scars. It gave you something to get hold of. These men were like something you'd make from granite or plasticine, featureless, emotionless. Pitiless.

He winced as something cold and hard was placed under his chin. He wondered if Jack could work out which kind of gun was being jammed painfully into his jawbone without looking at it. And if he could, well, then the man definitely ought to get out more and he would tell him so next time he… Next time he… There was going to be a next time, right? It wasn't, after he'd done battle with Ra and Apophis and Hathor, going to end here, like this, with a stupid, squalid little bullet through the brain. Was it?

"Try anything clever and I'll hurt you," the soldier said softly before withdrawing the gun and jamming it back into his belt.

Well, that was short and to the point and… Daniel realized he was scared. He'd obviously been scared for a while now but had only just identified the emotion. That shivering inside him wasn't from just the cold night air. Damn. He was probably in pretty deep trouble then. He missed Jack and Sam and Teal'c. Not just because they would have rescued him. He just missed them. They were a team, right? You were never alone when you were part of a team. Even when you were captured…

Jack must have felt so alone. He must have hated not being able to confide in them. Three months on Edora thinking he was never coming home, and then coming home to the Asgard wanting him to save the world single-handed again. You had to like the people who'd helped Jack after he'd got the Ancients' language accidentally downloaded into his brain. Not to mention the people who'd turned up in the nick of time to save all their butts on more than one occasion. But they also had a nasty habit of dumping impossible tasks on Jack: negotiate with the Goa'uld because…what? You're our choice and we can spell your name? You've proven to everyone's satisfaction in the past you despise the Goa'uld and all they stand for and can barely bring yourself to be civil to them under any circumstances, therefore you're our chosen candidate to sit down at a table with them and talk them into sparing the earth from total destruction? Then this latest demand: infiltrate the rogue SGC team, expose the traitor, lead the Asgard to the place from which all their stolen technology could be recovered. Oh and by the way you have to do it by yourself. Because we say so.

Jack could have died. He could have been killed by Maybourne's people and his body dumped off-world somewhere. Daniel hadn't even waved him goodbye.

"Shit!" Daniel was taken by surprise as they pushed him off the back off the truck. He landed awkwardly, slamming down onto one knee as the gravel hurt his feet. The soldiers vaulted down beside him with more grace but an ominous thud as their boots made a significant dent in the gravel to each side of him. "Ow!" The hand in his hair tightened and hauled him back to his feet.

"Move it." A nasty little shove forward. Damn this gravel was sharp. Someone's drive, tall laurel hedges scented with that unmistakable rotten apricot odor of foxes, a well-tended lawn, blue-rinsed by moonlight. Perhaps he could just walk on the grass instead? This gravel was killing his feet.

"Ow! Ow! OW!" Daniel wondered if the guy understood his head didn't actually go any further back than that, not without his neck snapping anyway. Through gritted teeth, he said, "I don't have any shoes on. I just want to walk on the grass."

The fingers in his hair clenched and abruptly there was pressure on the back of his head, forcing his face forward and down. Daniel flinched as the ground came up to meet him then cautiously opened his eyes again as nothing collided with his face. By the gray light he could make out a small oblong sign on which someone had neatly inscribed: Don't Walk On The Grass. Daniel moistened his lips. "Point taken," he said quietly.

He winced again as he was yanked back onto the gravel and shoved forward, his feet curling painfully in anticipation. He cleared his throat. "Where are we going?"

He didn't see the fist coming, he didn't even hear the rush of air. The question just left his mouth and then something hit him in the solar plexus so hard it was like walking into a barrier he hadn't known was there. His senses swooped for a moment and when he got them back again he found he was on his knees on the gravel, trying to simultaneously vomit and snatch back some air. He knew Jack would have probably still found enough oxygen to wheeze out what he thought of these guys, but his lung capacity was obviously inferior to the older man's because he needed every breath he could snatch just to ward off imminent brain damage. After he'd retched and coughed and gasped for a minute or two, he felt the now familiar hand close on his hair again and haul him up. He staggered. His feet trying to twist away from the gravel scratching their soles at the same time as he attempted to get up on tiptoe to stop his hair being pulled out by the roots.

"We ask the questions," the one who wasn't holding him said softly. "You keep your mouth closed until we tell you to open it."

Daniel opened his mouth to ask what the hell their problem was anyway? Then as he saw the soldier's fingers curl into a fist in readiness, closed his mouth again with an audible meeting of teeth. Silence was evidently important to these people. He would try to think of them as an…alien culture, that was it; a culture whose strange rituals he had an obligation to respect even when they made no sense whatsoever unless you were eight parts testosterone and two parts ferro-concrete, particularly between the ears… And they couldn't hit him just for thinking insults now could they?

Darting a sideways glance at the one who wasn't pushing him forward at just the right pace to jar his twisted knee and bruise his flinching feet, he met the gimlet gaze of a man who looked ready and willing to hit him for even looking like he might be thinking something insulting. Daniel swallowed and decided raked gravel was way more interesting than he'd ever given it credit for up until now. Just look at those striations, almost shell-like, those little spits of stone so pale in the moonlight, and what kind of stone was this anyway…? He risked another sideways glance and saw a lot of lawn each side now. They were away from the laurel hedges, and there were old cedars scattered at intervals. Someone with money. Probably old money. That was a lot of lawn out there. Acres and acres in which to bury as many bodies as you liked. Even by the moonlight this looked like the kind of obliging turf that would fold back over new earth and barely leave a trace.

Daniel realized he was still missing Jack and Sam and Teal'c, and it wasn't just to do with being part of team any more. It was a lot to do with wanting to be rescued.

***

Who would believe how much red tape you have to cut to hold a conversation with someone? Not any someone, of course. Someone who used to be part of a Top Secret Government Program before being recruited to an Unofficial Even More Top Secret Not Government At All Program. Before being caught, locked up, left to rot. I don't think Makepeace is going to get a trial. Not what ought to pass for a trial anyway. He's not going to get those twelve good men and true weighing up the pros and cons of actions, which, however much I might happen to disagree with them, certainly weren't done for personal gain. He did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do. I happen to think he was wrong. Big time. But his motives were of the highest. There are guys out there who have killed their wives, beaten their children, or shot complete strangers because they were having a bad day, who are probably going to see sunlight without bars in front of it before Robert Makepeace. Of all the things I'm not happy about concerning that last little operation, this is the one with which I am having the biggest problem.

It's not like I ever particularly liked the guy. We're - let's just say we're not compatible. And you could say he left me for dead when I wasn't. You could also say he risked his life to save mine, to save my team, and me, and lost some good men of his own in the process. He and Daniel have never got on. To be honest; there was friction between them from the first day they met, but Makepeace still came in and did his damnedest to save Daniel's life. Daniel didn't particularly appreciate his methods, but that doesn't alter the fact he's still alive partly because of Makepeace. Given Hathor's track record where Daniel's concerned, Makepeace might well have saved him from a fate worse than death as well, and this time I'm not talking about getting a snake in the back of the neck. I suspect there's a limit to how many times you can get raped by the Goa'uld and bounce back from it, so like it or not, Daniel definitely owes Makepeace one. And it's not like Hathor ever had any liking for Carter so you could say the cavalry probably came just in time for at least two of my team. Makepeace tried to rescue us just because he thought it was the right thing to do as well.

And, much as I hate to admit it, we'd all have been turned to pâté by the Touched if Makepeace and his jarheads hadn't saved our butts back on P3X-797. So Robert Makepeace is someone I owed, and I paid him back by getting him arrested. Anyway you look at it, that is not a pretty picture.

So, I'm not looking forward to this meeting with him. I wouldn't blame him if he told me to go screw myself, to be honest, but I really hope he doesn't. Because I think Makepeace might be my only hope of ever seeing Daniel alive again.

***

The light from the chandelier stung his eyes after the darkness, but the thick carpet was a welcome relief to his sore feet. A square white hall with a checkerboard marble floor colored by overlapping rugs. It was a lot warmer in here, but for some reason he couldn't stop shivering.

One of his kidnappers had gone off around the side of the building while the other let himself in through the imposing front door. It was the kind of door that really demanded a butler on the other side of it, but the crew-cutted Neanderthal with his hand in Daniel's hair had used an ordinary Yale key before dragging his victim into the light.

Daniel found himself still listening for the crunch of those thick boots on the gravel even when the noise had been transmuted into the muffled footfalls of heavy soles on Persian rugs. His toes curled gratefully into the woven red pile and he tried not to think of the children in those Asian sweatshops who would have been paid a pittance to make this beautiful object.

He was aware of paneling, white plaster walls, priceless things behind toughened glass that would no doubt ring a warning klaxon if it shattered. He felt light-headed. Beautiful doors, the kind of finish that made you want to stroke it. Except with his hands tied behind his back, he couldn't touch anything. He was just someone other people got to drag along by the hair or the collar. How long did it take before you forgot the people doing this to you had no right to do it? That just because they were stronger than you were and could hurt you at will you were still as good as they were? It was hard to hang onto who you were when the people around you seemed so convinced you were nothing. After a while, he supposed their certainty would be contagious. He didn't really know very much about the psychology of torture, the effects on the victim. Jack had given him some tips about What To Do If Captured And Tortured, but he'd kept it very general, like this was something he'd heard about which hopefully Daniel would never need to use. It had never been acknowledged Jack had first-hand knowledge of what being tortured was like, what the aftermath was like. How long it took to get over it. If you ever did. It wasn't something he and Jack had ever discussed. There were lots of things, now he looked back, that he and Jack had never discussed.

The grip on his collar was turning him, forcing him to follow a wavering line of amber straying across a red carpet. The pattern was blurring, dancing. Tiny fingers pushing shuttles for hour after hour in the dark. How could so much cruelty produce something so beautiful? Daniel stumbled, realizing belatedly he was exhausted. Apart from the time he'd spent unconscious he'd been awake an awfully long time. Just keep following the rugs: blue and gold Persian, fired earth Turkish; wine dark Pakistan; Shiraz; Kelim… He couldn't remember all the names now. It was too many years since his mother had told him. Native bazaars and the scent of ginger catching at the back of his throat; calves' brains he'd never been brave enough to taste when they were offered to him by friendly stall owners fascinated by the color of his hair; squares of crumbling white halva; the dark stain of tahini on his tongue; savory couscous dissolving in his mouth like sherbet. He was so damned tired he felt like Sam must have after Martouf stuck the memory device in her head: trapped in his own past and afraid of what scene he might be shown next. He stumbled and his feet strayed off the soft rugs to the cold floor. Chilly black and white squares made his bruised toes flinch at once.

Black and white squares. Playing chess with Jack in the VIP room while he told them both how sane he was feeling. A hundred chess games at Jack's place. He'd moved the damned pieces; abandoned the game they were playing to begin one of his own…

Jack might have been acting when he'd been undercover for the Asgard, but he'd had a role model he was copying. The guy who'd been slumped in the armchair with a beer in his hand and looked at him across the altered chessboard hadn't come out of nowhere. Maybe that was who Jack had been once upon a time. Black Ops made you crazy. Even Sam had said so more than once; the tension, the fear, the guilt. He'd never wanted to know if Jack had done things he was ashamed of. It was bad enough knowing Teal'c was living with guilt every day. He hadn't wanted to think it of Jack as well. Charlie's death was enough for anyone to have to carry around with him. If there was other blood on Jack's hands, Daniel hadn't wanted to hear it. Now he wished he'd asked. It might have helped Jack to talk about it. Christ, the guy was his best friend. How could he never have asked? He'd thought he was being tactful, but maybe he'd just been cowardly, scared of how much pressure their friendship could take, proud of what they had and not wanting to ruin it.

Proud? Yes, he thought he probably was. They were so different, after all. There were so many reasons why they shouldn't have ended up joined at the hip and practically telepathic, and yet they had. The friendship between Sam and himself had always been effortless and pretty near instantaneous, and that was how it had been for Jack and Teal'c as well: two like minds who understood each other. Sam and Teal'c, like Sam and Jack, had started off with mutual respect and built up to friendship through longer acquaintance. He and Teal'c had started with a relationship built on guilt and it had taken the Cor-Ai for Daniel to understand how much Teal'c was still blaming himself for Daniel's loss and, more importantly, for Teal'c to realize Daniel really did see him as a valued friend. But he and Jack…

He'd been right there every step of the way of that friendship being forged, and even he wasn't sure quite how it had come about or how it had become so strong. Given that since Sha're's death he now had nothing and no one except the SGC, his relationship with Jack was probably the single most important one in his life. No, make that 'definitely'. When he'd walked out of Jack's house without that friendship he'd felt like someone who'd suffered a bereavement. Like a part of himself was missing. He'd driven home in a daze, playing the scene over and over, trying to find a way through it, past it, to make it not be true.

"Doctor Jackson. What a pleasure."

The hand tightened on his collar, arresting his forward movement, and Daniel cautiously lifted his gaze from the pattern he'd been following. There was even more light in here, which made his eyes water painfully. A long room, pale-painted walls, objets d'art arranged at intervals. Some modern art and a few dark oils in elaborate frames. He peered at them myopically but could only see a blur. All the same, he had no doubt they were priceless. He had no doubt they were stolen either, but not from a gallery or museum. They would have been stolen from the dead. Even the white lilies on the coffee table seemed to be telling him these pictures had been ripped from the walls of murdered Jews.

Daniel swayed, but the hand on his collar held him up, thrust him forward. He saw a couch that would have cost him a year's salary upholstered in yellow Venetian silk. A pair of what looked like handmade leather shoes. A gray suit. A man he couldn't go on avoiding forever. Not Maybourne. Of course not Maybourne. Had he been hoping for a familiar face? Oh that was pathetic, truly pathetic. He would have been relieved to see Harry Maybourne sitting where this stranger was with an insufferable smile on his face. And he would have been glad to see Maybourne because even if they'd never liked each other, at least they knew one another. It had to be harder to order someone killed you'd had conversations with didn't it? Didn't it?

He met curiously pale eyes; ice blue and emotionless. Other than that, a non-descript man, very well-dressed, middle-aged, manicured hands with blunt-tipped fingers, a full head of silvery hair. A resolute jaw. Height hard to guess as he was sitting down. A little over six foot perhaps. Jack would have been able to tell at a glance if this man had ever been military. Daniel had no way of knowing. He cleared his throat and was annoyed to find he was afraid to speak before he was given permission. His bruised midriff urged him to silence even as indignation rose up to war with his exhaustion. Daniel said formally, "You have the advantage of me." He tried not to flinch in readiness for a blow.

"I don't think you need to know my name, Doctor Jackson."

"I don't think you needed to have me kidnapped."

Daniel couldn't stop himself flinching as the heel of a hand was slammed into the side of his head. He staggered but stayed on his feet. He twisted his head round to glare at the soldier who'd hit him, wanting the man to see he wasn't afraid. All right, that wasn't strictly true, but you couldn't let people think hitting you was going to make you do what they wanted or they'd only do it more.

The man on the couch waved a hand and Daniel was relieved to sense the soldier backing away from him. Okay, he still had his hands tied behind his back and a bruise in his guts where that fist had hit home, not to mention an ache in his head from his phone connecting with it, but at least he was out of thumping range now. The guy was backing right away from him, positioning himself where Daniel could see him, folding his arms in what looked worryingly like readiness, but at least Daniel could say what he wanted and not be punched for five minutes.

He looked at the man on the couch. "I'd still like to know who you are and why you've had me brought here."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, you can call me Mr Trevalyn. I have a little translation job for you, Doctor Jackson."

Daniel blinked resentfully at the man in front of him. He really didn't appreciate being kidnapped or manhandled, and he liked being made to feel scared even less. He moistened his lips. "Something tells me that if this 'little translation job' had been approved by General Hammond you wouldn't have needed to contact me the way you did. And as there are plenty of other Egyptologists out there I'm wondering why you need me so badly you were prepared to go to all that trouble and inconvenience?"

That smile was not reassuring. "People who can read obscure dialects of Goa'uld are a little thin on the ground, Doctor Jackson. On Earth at the present time there's you and there's the Jaffa and - forgive me - but our intelligence suggested you would be a much easier man to persuade to work for us."

Daniel gave him a tight little smile in return. "Well, my intelligence is telling me translating anything for you is not something I'm going to want to do."

"Doctor Jackson," the man held out his hands in a regretful gesture, "must we get melodramatic?"

Daniel glanced across at the impassive soldier leaning against the wall. In the white light of the chandelier he could see the man was indeed as enormous as he'd appeared in his apartment, bigger than Teal'c and apparently carved from basalt. "I hope not," Daniel returned.

"If you won't agree to help us out with our little problem willingly then we'll have to make you work for us against your will, which will be unpleasant for both of us. You're an intelligent man, I'm sure you have enough sense to realize this is a no-win situation. You're not military. You're not trained to withstand…duress. You will therefore agree to what we want - sooner or later. You will translate the device for us. Why not make life a lot easier on yourself and translate it now before we have to hurt you? Something, I can assure you, we really don't want to do."

Daniel returned Trevalyn's gaze and said conversationally, "I have a counter proposition to put to you: Since there is no way in hell I'm going to translate any Goa'uld device for some cowboy NID outfit whatever you do to me, why don't you give up now and send me home again before we both waste any more time?"

He hadn't seen the soldier move. He certainly hadn't heard him. The first he knew about his change of position was when a backhand struck him, hard, across the face.

Daniel turned his head back slowly, the stinging pain receding a little as he snatched a couple of deep breaths. That had hurt. He moistened his lips before saying quietly, "All the technology you've stolen from the Goa'uld, and the best you can come up with is to hit me?"

The man in the gray suit examined his blunt-tipped fingers as though they were suddenly fascinating. "Oh we have more sophisticated methods as well, but I don't think it would do any harm for you to remember what good old fashioned pain feels like."

"You mean you're afraid to use equipment you don't understand in case you accidentally kill me with it?" Daniel tried not to flinch as he was grabbed by the shoulder of his jacket again.

Trevalyn shook his head regretfully. "I expected more of a man of your intelligence, Doctor Jackson."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

Trevalyn waved a hand at the soldier. "Explain Doctor Jackson's options to him. Thoroughly. If he seems…confused, explain them to him again."

***

It was a gray box of a room. A window set high up in the north wall, the glass thick and with wire inside. The kind you can't even break with a lump hammer. There was a table with a chair each side of it. There was Makepeace sitting in the chair. There was the smell of disinfectant. There was an empty chair. I had to remind myself this was just an interview room. They wouldn't leave him in a room like this. They had to know you couldn't leave someone like Makepeace in a room like this.

When I came home through the 'gate the first time, I knew I couldn't go back to ordinary duties. Okay. On-world duties. Nothing the Air Force was going to offer me would add up to the buzz I'd got from going through that 'gate because suddenly the sky was full of possibilities as well as stars. There was life out there. Not just the rumor of it, the hope of it, the yearning for it. Real life. People I knew who knew me living on a whole different world at the other end of the known galaxy. I had a suitcase in my loft containing the belongings of a man married to a woman who had never seen the Earth. My lighter was on Abydos along with Daniel: two solid proofs we'd traveled to another place and found people just like us. That was one hell of a head rush.

The first thing I did after I got back was resign from the Air Force. The second thing I did was buy a telescope and start looking outside myself for the first time in what felt like a long time. My point is, you can't go through the 'gate and stay who you were before you stepped into that blue light. And you can't go from having the infinite possibilities of the universe at your fingertips to a room ten feet by ten feet, the color of wet cement.

"O'Neill."

"Makepeace."

I hoped he knew I wasn't enjoying this. I know Robert Makepeace pretty well, and he isn't a bad man. Like Teal'c said, he's a man of integrity and courage. He's also about as wrong as you can get on a lot of important matters. Now that he'd lost everything in no small part because of me I didn't know how he was going to feel about helping me. But he was a straw, and I was clutching.

I pulled back the chair and hesitated, waiting for him to tell me whether or not I could sit down. He nodded. I sat.

"Something up?" To his credit, he didn't seem hostile. He wasn't pleased to see me, but he wasn't about to spit in my eye either. I think the truth was, he was bored, and I was a change to the routine. Compared with staring at the wall, talking to me was looking interesting to him.

I waved the guard away and held his gaze. "Maybourne's goons have taken Daniel."

"Jackson?" The surprise looked genuine. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." I explained the situation in as few words as I could, studying his face for clues as I did so. Except there were no clues. Makepeace knew squat. I could see it in his face. This was a waste of time and Daniel was probably already dead. Don't even think it or you'll make it true.

Makepeace frowned. "What the hell do they want him for?"

He sounded unconvinced anyone would choose to take Daniel who didn't have a damned good reason for it. In fact, his tone seemed to suggest Daniel's company was not something he would personally choose to have even with a damned good reason.

"I'm hoping you can tell me that." I moistened my lips before adding, "I know you and Daniel have never got on."

"Damned right." His agreement was fast and unequivocal. "The guy's a pain in the ass."

"But I don't believe that you'd want Daniel dead or…injured."

"Gagged maybe," Makepeace shrugged. "But no, you're right. I wouldn't want him dead."

"So I'm hoping you're going to level with me about why Maybourne would have taken him?"

"I don't know any more than you do. I can guess Maybourne might want to negotiate. Trade him back to you for something. You put him in a tricky situation. I imagine he's going to use Jackson to try and lean on you to change your report a little."

I was sure he was telling the truth, which meant I'd hit a dead-end. As I didn't want to hit a dead-end, I went on sitting there glaring at him hopefully, like I could will him to give me something else.

He held up his hands. "Look, I'm sorry about Jackson. If I could help you, I would. Maybe the SGC gave up on me, but I never gave up on it. I happen to think it's the most important work anyone is doing anywhere on the planet, and I would never abandon an SGC member while there was any hope for him. But I can tell you Jackson isn't worth killing if that's what's worrying you."

"Not even for payback. Not even to make a point? You said it went high up. How high, Robert?"

Makepeace shook his head. "I don't want to die, O'Neill. And if I say too much I'm going to meet with an accident. All I can tell you is the people behind this wouldn't waste their time knocking off one lousy archaeologist."

"Why not? General Hammond and I busted Maybourne's little party, and we'd both mind if something happened to Daniel. Maybe that seems like a good enough reason to kill him."

"If they wanted to make a point he'd have been dead in his apartment and there would have been nothing to tie him to the NID. They're not going to take him away just to kill him. And if they wanted to make sure you'd got the message they would have run him over right in front of you, Jack."

I winced as memories of someone else being run over right in front of me came back with vivid force. I angrily shook off the memory. I needed to focus on what Makepeace had told me because it made sense. "So, you're saying they didn't take him just to kill him?"

"No. Like I said, they'll trade him for something."

"So why haven't they made their demands? Why haven't we had the ransom note or the message telling us what we have to do to get him back?"

"Maybourne's probably just making you sweat a little before he comes out and says what he wants in return."

"You don't think NID would want Daniel for himself?"

"What the hell for? A hat rack?"

I gritted my teeth. "He does happen to be an expert on ancient civilizations, the Goa'uld, the Egyptian language…"

"Oh," Makepeace frowned. "Right. That's a good point. Well, if it makes you feel better, that's another reason why they won't kill him. I know you think those of us who oppose your view are traitors, but we see ourselves as patriots. People who are united in their opposition to the Goa'uld. Jackson's knowledge of the Goa'uld language makes him valuable. No way would NID kill him or the Jaffa when they don't have anyone else who speaks the lingo."

That did have the ring of truth about it. It was true these people had an agenda I didn't agree with, but their motivation was the same as mine. They wanted to defend Earth against the Goa'uld. Killing Daniel could be detrimental to that aim; therefore it was very unlikely they would kill him unless they got sloppy or someone lost his temper. Now that Makepeace had pointed it out to me, their prime directive would surely be to keep Daniel alive and with all his brain cells intact. But if they hadn't taken him as payback and they didn't want to trade him, or blackmail us, why had they bothered snatching him in the first place? I looked at Makepeace. "Isn't there anything you've…liberated recently that maybe you couldn't backwards engineer or that had some Goa'uld writing on it no one could decipher or…?"

"Yes." He sat up straight, looking more interested. "One of the last things I took through for them had some writing on it that looked Goa'uld. Maybe they haven't been able to get it to work yet and need him to tell them what it says. That makes sense at least."

My heart had already been sinking but now it definitely seemed to pick up the pace a little as it headed downwards. I said pointedly, "Daniel won't co-operate."

Makepeace gave me a 'who the hell are you kidding' look. "Come on, O'Neill, team loyalty's all very well but Jackson will crack like a rotten twig if anyone leans on him. I know the type."

"No, Robert," I said quietly. "You don't."

"O'Neill, like Jackson just happened to tell me twenty times a day when he and I were having to work together, he's a civilian not a soldier. He'll crack." He frowned then. "Look, I'm not enjoying this. I'm sorry they took him. I'm sorry they're questioning him right now, but I'm not going to lie to make you feel better. If NID don't get what they want they get pissy real quick. But the faster he cracks, the quicker they stop leaning on him. He'll crack in ten minutes flat which means he won't get that badly hurt and you'll get him back all the sooner."

I'm actually rather proud of the fact Daniel has never been tortured while under my command. Not conventionally tortured anyway. The Nem mind-probe thing was voluntary on his part. I still haven't managed to get him to grasp that wasn't a good choice he made there. Apophis and his mind-reading device wasn't fun, but it wasn't strictly speaking torture. To be honest, Daniel being tortured has always been one of those things I'm pretty keen to avoid.

Makepeace never had much imagination - which is a good asset in a soldier. Sitting there thinking 'I wonder what it feels like to be suffering from that wound right now' when you've just picked off one of the enemy via a telescopic lens and rifle and the other guy is rolling around in agony with his guts unraveling is not a good idea. Daniel, for instance, has far too much imagination to be a good soldier, as well as being too inclined to see the other guy's point of view. If the other guy is trying to kill you, his point of view is not something you should be thinking about. Getting him before he gets you is what you should be thinking about. So that's just one of the reasons why Makepeace is twenty times a better soldier than Daniel ever could or would be. But the things which make Daniel a bad soldier are also the things that made him a good human being. Those are the things that would have stopped him saying what Makepeace had just said to me.

Makepeace, being Makepeace, couldn't work out why I was looking like I wanted to rip someone's head off. And to be honest I didn't know I was looking that way myself until he said, "Christ, O'Neill, you look like you want to rip someone's head off."

"No, really?" I glared at him.

It took him a moment but he got there in the end. Finally did the math and worked out how he would have felt if someone had just told him one of his team was being tortured right now, but, hey not to worry, because they'd work him over so badly he'd crack real fast so that made it okay.

He held up his hands in supplication. "Damnit, Jack, I said I was sorry. If there was anything to do to help you get Jackson back, I would. I'm not happy about this situation either. I don't dislike the guy. I don't think he has any more right to be in the SGC than Mary Poppins, and I think you need your head read for ever agreeing to have him on your team, but I don't dislike him."

"For your information, Makepeace, without Daniel there wouldn't be a goddamned SGC. He's the guy who opened the 'gate. He's the reason we even have a Stargate program."

Makepeace just waved a hand in that 'yeah, yeah, like who the hell cares?' way.

I collected myself. "Give me something, Robert. Give me anything." I met his gaze. "Help me. Please."

He had his mouth open to tell me there was no help he could give me - I read it in his face - when suddenly his eyes opened wider. "Wait…Maybe… Look, Jack, when they were recruiting me at the beginning, they were very cagey. There were a lot of meetings with intermediaries. On one of the meetings, there was a screw-up. The driver took me to the wrong place. I never saw that driver again."

"What place?"

"A big house in the middle of nowhere. The kind of house where very rich people live. Like I told you in the 'gateroom, you really don't know who you're dealing with here."

I was on my feet at once. "Give me the name of the guy who lives there?"

"I don't know it."

"Okay: directions how to get there then?"

"I don't know that either."

"Damnit, Makepeace!"

"Look, I was sitting in a car someone else was driving. It was over a year ago. I had other things on my mind besides the route."

I rested my hands on the table and just for a moment I knew how Nem had felt before he vacuumed Daniel's brain. The knowledge was in Makepeace's mind somewhere. All he had to do was find it and give it to me. I met his gaze. "But you're a good soldier, Makepeace, and a good soldier always works out his line of retreat. That means knowing where the hell you are and how to get back."

He shook his head helplessly. "If I knew, I'd tell you." He frowned. "Maybe I could remember if we drove out of the city. I might recognize some of the places we passed."

I still believed him, but I knew how this was going to sound: like a breakout attempt. It was obviously going to be a hell of a lot easier for Makepeace to get away if I took him out looking for Daniel than if he was stuck in this gray-walled box. I could see the general jibbing at this. I could see everyone jibbing at this. I swallowed and said again, "I believe you, Makepeace. I believe you want to help me find Daniel, and I'll do all I can to get you temporarily assigned to the rescue team, but after we find him, you'll be coming back here. And if you are lying to me, and if you either know where Daniel is and aren't telling me or - so help you - you and Maybourne arranged this between you so I'd do exactly what I'm about to do and you could get away - then I will kill you."

Makepeace met my gaze and didn't even blink. "Come on, Jack. We've known each other a long time. I know how much the geek means to you."

"Exactly. Which means you'd have known taking Daniel was the fastest way to get my attention."

"It also means I know damned well you'd kill me if I had any part in him being kidnapped. I don't mind taking on the Asgard or the Goa'uld, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to grab Jackson."

I must have looked unconvinced because he gave me a thin little smile. "O'Neill, Jackson annoyed the shit out of me the whole week I had him under my command. If anyone else had given me one tenth of the crap I had to put up with from him, he'd have met with a little accident that would have put him in the infirmary for six months. You probably noticed when we all came back through the 'gate, your geek didn't have so much as a scratch. Well, that's because I know what you and the Jaffa would do to anyone who hurt him, and I was never the suicidal type. If this is a scam of Maybourne's, I don't know anything about it, and if you can get me on the rescue team and we do find Jackson and Maybourne jumps out of the woodwork at the last minute and offers me an escape route, I'm not going to take it because I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for a psycho colonel and his psycho alien sidekick. Understood?"

I backed up towards the door. "Psycho colonel? That hurts, Robert. That really…hurts."

"You have to trust me," he said.

As I knocked on the door for the guard to come and let me out, I thought about what he was asking. If I could fool Daniel then I was damned sure Makepeace could fool me. For all I knew, I was doing exactly what they were expecting me to do. I really didn't like the idea of walking into a trap Maybourne had baited for me. The trouble was, I liked the idea of Daniel being a prisoner even less. And the thought of Daniel being tortured wasn't exactly giving me a warm fuzzy glow of contentment. As the guard locked the door behind me, I had a last glimpse of Makepeace still sitting in that room with the walls closing in on him and I knew he was right, if only because I didn't have any better option at the moment. I had to trust him.

***

Daniel hoped whoever was watching him through the spy camera thought it was the cold making him shake like this, causing the shudders to ripple through him over and over. Not fear. Definitely not fear. He had jammed himself into the furthermost corner of this bare gray room so he had a wall against each shoulder blade, pulled his legs up to make himself take up the smallest amount of space. He'd get warmer in a minute. In a minute. His sodden jacket was clinging to his sodden t-shirt which was clinging to his cold wet skin but at least they gave him some protection from the ugly twins; gave him something between his ribcage and their fists.

The camera turned, lazily raking the room. What the hell was it looking for? There was nothing else to see. He was the main - and sole - attraction: the only thing inside this room except for the light-fittings and the door handle. He had to keep reminding himself this was basic stuff they were trying: the freezing room, the sleep-deprivation, the buckets of ice water thrown over him every time he closed his eyes, the cattle-prod or whatever the hell that thing was that gave the electric shocks, being slapped around by men a lot bigger than he was. All pretty much kindergarten stuff compared with what some people had endured in the past. Compared with what Jack had endured in the past.

And no, they'd never discussed it, but Daniel knew what Jack had gone through in Iraq was way worse than this. This was nothing. He could get through this. And they couldn't afford to hurt him any worse than they were doing at the moment because they needed him not just alive but fully compos mentis. The video camera swung back to stare at him with its Cyclops eye, a red light winking to let him know it was working. Where the hell did they think he could go? There was only the one door and it was very emphatically locked.

Daniel gave the camera his best false smile, saying, "Ankh, udja, seneb!" Life, prosperity, health! Yeah. Like I mean it.

They could hit him for that later. Right now, it felt worth it. And there was no harm in reminding them he was a linguist. Expert on the Goa'uld language, right? Only one they had unless they fancied trying to grab Teal'c, in which case he would have to say good luck to them because they were going to need it. And damn, if he'd just gone over to Jack's like the man had asked him… No point in whining over might-have-beens. This little piggy had sulked all the way home and got himself grabbed by the spooks from hell. Temporarily. He had no doubt this was a temporary situation because he knew Jack and Sam and Teal'c were tearing the state apart looking for him right now. They were very good at what they did which meant sooner or later they would find him. All he had to do was hang on in there and wait. He could do that. He could definitely do that.

As the door opened, he determinedly averted his eyes. He'd learned this one all by himself. Don't look at the man or men who were coming to hurt you. Definitely don't look at any implement they might be carrying to use against you or else your gaze would get riveted to it. That was what they wanted: him to be the snake to their mongoose. Well, he wasn't going to play the victim for them. Jack had told him that once. No one could make you a victim; that was something you did to yourself. People could hurt you as much as they liked, but that didn't make you a victim unless you let it. He was Daniel Jackson. He was a Doctor of Archaeology; linguist; Egyptologist; anthropologist; the man who'd deciphered in two weeks what the best brains military science could buy couldn't crack in two years. He was a member of SG-1. He was not a victim. By comparison with him these guys were cavemen. Neanderthals. He could out-think them, and when Jack, Sam, and Teal'c turned up, they could hopefully beat the crap out of them for him and let him watch. That was a warming thought. He was going to hang onto that one. Footsteps. Boots. Legs. Look at the floor, Daniel. Keep looking at the floor. Don't look at him.

He stared stolidly at the wet concrete, teeth gritted in readiness. He heard the crack and hiss of something electrical being charged. Something Goa'uld? Christ, not one of those things Sokar had used on Jolinar? Sam had told him she'd never felt a pain like it…

Don't look at it! That's what they want!

Probably a tazer or whatever the things were called. It didn't matter anyway because whatever it was would hurt him, but it wouldn't really damage him. That was what he had to hang onto. It might feel like it was doing him harm, but all it was doing was…giving his nerve-endings a little workout. At the end of their half an hour of playtime, he'd still be alive and relatively unharmed, and they'd be no closer to getting their damned Goa'uld technology translated, and, please God, Jack would be thirty minutes nearer to getting him out of here.

"Feeling any more co-operative?"

Uh-oh. Time to meet the Flintstones again.

Daniel did look at him then. The one with the darker eyebrows this time. Given that the two soldiers seemed to share the same brain it didn't make a whole lot of difference to him although this one was marginally worse than the other one, seemed to enjoy his work just a tiny bit more. He gave the man his best cold stare. Not quite up there with Jack's, but he was working on it. He said, very crisply, "Screw you."

The blow snapped his head round to the side: a double-whammy because the back of his skull hit the wall a millisecond after that hand connected with his face. More blood. What a change. He hadn't tasted that warm salt flavor in oh…minutes. As he licked the red moisture from his lips, Daniel said, "Better watch the head, Soldier. If you brain damage me your boss might not be too happy with you."

That too-familiar ham-sized fist closing in his hair, dragging him away from the walls, throwing him to the floor. The sound of the implement he wasn't going to look at fizzing in readiness.

He could get through this.

Pain. A white flare through every nerve ending. Every cell in his body screaming at him to Do what they want for Christ's sake! Ignore it. It goes off again. Just takes a few minutes. Then they do it again.

A boot in his guts so hard it lifted him right off the floor.

Oh God. Don't puke. Don't puke. He tried to drag some air back into his lungs, blinking to clear the kaleidoscope of swirling lights in front of his eyes, but everything remained blurred, wet, salt, eyes watering. The instinct was to crawl away but it was difficult to do with your hands tied behind your back. He tried to curl up instead, to protect his midriff from those steel-capped boots.

He could still get through this.

Something that sounded like a snicker. A blaze of pain to the back of his neck, a white flame of agony straight down his spine. He could hear someone's breath sobbing, taste concrete dust on his tongue. He was trying to wrap himself around the floor but it was cold and wet and wouldn't protect him. Fingers in his hair, pulling him up. "Co-operate, you little - " Oh, someone who shared SG-6's assumptions about how he kept Jack happy in between missions obviously. Charming. Translate it into Abydonian. Aped-sewerer? No, that would be 'bird-drinker', Daniel… Ow! Ow! He was trying to get up despite the way his body was still thrumming from the tazer blast, to stop all the weight being taken by his hair. His bare feet scraped against the cold floor. A vicious backhand. Pain exploding in his cheekbone, his eye-socket, his brain. Someone crying out as he hit the floor. Pain. Sharp… Not his arms. Don't say he'd broken his arms. No, still intact, the rope cutting into his wrists and bruises all down his right side, but no bones snapped. Say the alphabet backwards. Too easy. Thirteen times twelve. Too difficult. Translation. Get it right this time. Skaara had taught him lots of new swear words he'd never even heard of in English but he couldn't remember the Abydonian for that one.

He'd learned to curl up as tight as he could, to protect his genitals from both toecaps and tazer blasts. It was automatic now. Jack would be proud of him. The soldier was crouching next to him, pulling up his jacket and tee-shirt, giving himself some bare flesh to work with. "Co-operate…" The fizz as it charged again. Any second now there would be the hot wire through the nerve-endings. Or the boot in the ribs. The backhand to the face. Being dragged around by the hair. Bounced off the walls. Tazered again. And again. The taste of his own blood, smell of his own sweat. But it made no difference to him because it was still kindergarten stuff. Right? They were working with both hands tied behind their backs here because they couldn't really hurt him. No, actually, he was the one with both hands tied behind his back. But never mind. The analogy was still sound. All they could do was hurt him. Being hurt never hurt any…well, okay, maybe it did. Maybe it hurt a whole hell of a lot. Maybe it made you want to scream and bite through your own tongue and sob with the pain of it, but that wasn't important now. The important thing was he wasn't doing what they wanted, and they couldn't make him. All he had to do was hang in there and wait for Jack to come get him.

The tazer touched him again. Pain screamed. He screamed. Tried to stifle it biting down hard on his jacket, tasting the engine oil but soothed by the texture of the cloth against his tongue. A hand closed on the scruff of his neck and began to drag him up in readiness for knocking him down.

He could definitely get through this.

***

If killing someone would get this show on the road any quicker I swear I would put a bullet in the goddamned Pope before taking out Bambi with the rest of the clip. How the hell can they still be deliberating when one of my team is being tortured for crying out loud!

I've been storming into rooms, yelling, and storming out of them again so often I've got to the stage where I can't even remember if I'm supposed to be storming or yelling at the moment. But just in case I hadn't mentioned it in the last thirty seconds, I said, "Daniel's a civilian. He shouldn't be in this situation. We have an obligation to get him out of there…"

"Colonel O'Neill. There is no proof Doctor Jackson is being ill-treated or is in any physical danger at the moment."

That was the guy in the suit they'd flown in from Washington to stop us all going ballistic. I was pretty much camped out in Hammond's office at the moment, willing his phone to ring with the all clear to give me Makepeace or the news that slimy son-of-a-bitch Maybourne had told the guys questioning him what the hell his thugs had done with Daniel. The spook kept giving me weird looks. The ones I'd be getting a lot of in the last forty-eight freakin' hours. Forty-eight hours! Daniel's a civilian. He shouldn't be in this situation… What had he just said? I stared at the guy in disbelief. "No, of course there isn't. Those guys could have turned up and kidnapped him from his own home in the middle of the night because they just really wanted to show Daniel a good time in Vegas."

"Colonel O'Neill!"

"What!" I realized it was Hammond who'd spoken this time and collected myself. "Sorry, sir. You were saying…?"

"We are doing everything within our power to get Doctor Jackson back. We have the police, the army and the Coast Guard. We're watching every airport…"

I knew that speech. I could tune it out. I let him get to the end and then began my own little continuous loop. The three of us were like characters in an opera at the moment, all with our own little chorus that we were going to keep on singing louder and louder until the orchestra stopped playing. I took a deep breath and started up again: "I need Makepeace. I need him to help me find Daniel. I give you my word I won't let him escape."

The spook in the suit said, "Colonel, this is a very delicate…"

"…situation, I know. Everyone keeps telling me how delicate the situation is. Have you any idea how delicate the human body is? How many bones it contains? How much it hurts when people start breaking them one by one? Daniel's a civilian. He shouldn't be in this…"

"Colonel!"

I wasn't going to let him start his own verse this time. I looked Hammond right in the eye and said, "Sir, you have to let me have Makepeace. I don't care what favors you have to ask. I don't care what strings you have to pull. I don't care if you have to hire a tank and drive it straight through the prison wall, but if you won't, I will. I need Makepeace out of jail and I needed him forty-eight hours ago. I know Daniel is being tortured right now and I am this close to killing someone."

"I'm hearing you, Colonel." Hammond's lack of annoyance told me he was also agreeing with me even if he wasn't going to admit it in front of the spook. "And I have phone calls in with everyone I can think of to expedite Colonel Makepeace's temporary transfer to the custody of the SGC. You're just going to have to be patient for a little while longer."

"I've been patient for forty-eight hours."

"Jack, you haven't been patient for forty-eight minutes. You have to trust me on this. I'm doing everything I can to recover Doctor Jackson as quickly as possible." Then Hammond forgot about our visitor from Washington for a minute and said gently, "I want that boy back as much as you do, and if NID or Maybourne's little offshoot is responsible for this, I promise you they are going to pay for it. But right now, we have to do this by the book. We have to be the ones playing by the rules here. The waters got very muddied for a while and I need everyone in Washington to know who the good guys are."

"Well, that's the difference between us, General, because I just need Daniel back while he's still in one piece."

I hate it when Hammond doesn't get angry even when I'm jumping all over him. He just gave me one of his mildest looks and said, "Jack…"

I held up my hands. "Okay. I know. We're doing everything we can. Just get me Makepeace, sir, please, because I swear if I don't get a lead to follow soon I'm going to go beat one out of Harry Maybourne."

"Colonel Maybourne is being questioned in the matter of Doctor Jackson's disappearance." The spook said it like I'd hurt his feelings.

I gave him a straight look. "Not by me and Teal'c he's not." I turned to the general. "That's another thing, sir. Teal'c is getting seriously…restless. If we don't find him someone to go and stomp on sometime in the next hour or so, I think it's going to get messy."

"Jack, when you find Doctor Jackson, you and Teal'c can pull the arms and legs off whoever took him for all I care, but for the moment you have to be patient and let me handle this my way. I'm expecting to hear back in the next couple of hours. Just - hang in there."

I nodded and left him to it. Beating your own head against a wall has a certain attraction sometimes but doing it to someone who is clearly trying everything humanly possible to help you just doesn't. But as I went to tell Carter and Teal'c we needed to be patient for a little longer, I found myself whispering, "Daniel, wherever you are, I promise we're going to come and find you real soon, but right now you've got to do like the general says and just - hang in there…"

I said it into the place where Daniel should have been, right by my left shoulder. The place where he was going to be again very soon, or else… No. There was no 'or else' about it. One way or another we were getting Daniel back, and if Plan A didn't pan out, I'd started fine-tuning Plan B. I'd already decided I was giving the general two more hours to cut through the red tape. If he couldn't give me Makepeace, I was flying to Washington to put a bullet in each of Harry Maybourne's kneecaps. Then I was going to ask him where Daniel was. And if he didn't tell me, I was going to hand him over to Teal'c. As back-up plans go, I've had worse.

I turned the door handle of my office, braced to face those hopeful looks from Carter and Teal'c that I was going to have to disappoint. "Hang in there, Daniel," I murmured again. "Just hang in there."

***

"I'm very disappointed in you, Doctor Jackson."

Kneeling on a Shiraz he was making very wet, Daniel turned his head to wipe his bleeding lip on his shoulder before saying conversationally, "To be honest, Trevalyn, I'm not that impressed with you either."

The boot caught him flat-footed between the shoulder blades, sending him face first onto the floor. Daniel winced as the left side of his face had its bruises retouched. Still, this was definitely an improvement on hitting concrete, and at least his arms were numb now. He'd sort of gone through that particular pain and come out the other side of it. It would be inconvenient when his hands dropped off through lack of circulation, of course, but he wasn't sure he'd actually feel it. Down the far end of the long room there was a fire flickering blurrily in the elegant marble fireplace. He was torn between wanting to crawl down there to try and get warm, and flinching from the thought of red hot pokers and their possible uses. His guts were aching from a combination of hunger and bruises. He was spaced out with exhaustion and was trembling faintly with the shock of those blasts from the tazer, like a cymbal someone had hit an hour before still reverberating quietly to itself.

"Untie him."

Daniel didn't know if that was good news or not. It might be that Trevalyn could see how the rope had started eating into his swollen skin or it could be it was difficult to start breaking his fingers while his hands were in this position.

He was yanked up by the hair again and then something was slicing through the rope. It was coming loose, being pulled off, the blood coming back. "Shit!" Daniel gritted his teeth as pain flared for a moment, not just his hands, his arms as well, his shoulders, every damned muscle and tendon from his little finger to his neck, then he very cautiously moved his arms forward and gingerly fingered his wrists. Only a couple of places where the skin had been broken. They were mostly just swollen and bruised. He was okay. Superficial, like he kept telling himself. Everything they were doing to him was superficial. He wished he could stop shaking. He would hate those two soldiers to think he was afraid of them because he wasn't. He might be afraid of how much they could hurt him, the damage they could do him, the fact they were so much stronger than he was. But he wasn't afraid of them.

"Doctor Jackson, out of respect for your unique knowledge, my people have been very restrained."

Still rubbing his wrists, Daniel darted a look at the man on the yellow couch. "Oh, very."

"They could become a lot less restrained if you don't begin to be a little more co-operative."

Daniel couldn't think of a good answer to that and anyway he was trembling again. If he talked when he was shaking, it would sound like he was afraid. It kept coming over him in waves. He didn't know if it was the shock or the exhaustion, but he couldn't stop the damned trembling in his limbs. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to get warm, and looked fixedly at the rug.

"It could get very messy."

Daniel had no idea what the guy was threatening him with, but it didn't sound like whatever it was would be very enjoyable. His head was abruptly wrenched back again as he was made to look at Trevalyn. One of the soldiers was standing behind him; Daniel could feel his breath on the back of the neck. The other one was standing by the door just in case he made a run for it. Yes, that was very likely. After no sleep and no food for God knows how many hours, the first thing he was going to do was try and fight his way out past six foot four of immovable sadism.

As he pulled Daniel's head back cruelly, the soldier whispered in his ear the other things he could do and would do too, if Daniel didn't start co-operating. Daniel swallowed. Yes, that definitely came under the category of messy in his book, not to mention painful and degrading. But it wasn't life threatening. Jack had told him a little about the checklist for being tortured. You endured the stuff that was fixable, and you avoided the stuff that was irreparable any way you could without actually giving them what they wanted. And you didn't start lying until you had to. You saved lying for step two. You had to go through the period of resistance so when you did start lying it would come across as more convincing. What you never, ever did, was tell them what they wanted to know. Diversionary tactics were also good. He'd seen Jack put those into use enough times himself when the four of them had been captured. Don't look at him or her or him either. Look at me. Talk to me. Focus on me. It had taken him a while to work out what the man was doing. For a while he'd thought Jack was just…mouthy. Take control of the conversation. That was something else Jack had told him. Try to make it go the way you want to. Any time spent talking about what you want instead of what they want is stopping them getting what they're after. And if stops them hitting you for five minutes as well, all the better.

Daniel cleared his throat. "Mr - uh Trevalyn - I'm sorry, I have to ask. Did you collect bird's eggs when you were a boy?"

Even better than he'd hoped for: A direct hit and a frown of obvious surprise. "Why do you ask?"

"You just struck me as the type somehow. You know - there's one pair of bald eagles left on the planet, and they've just laid one egg. You still have to steal it to complete your collection."

Trevalyn's face darkened. "I'm warning you, Doctor Jackson, my patience isn't limitless."

"Mine is," Daniel assured him. "To be honest, working with Jack, it really has to be."

"Either you translate the device or else…"

"Or else G.I. Joe does what…? If you traumatize me too much I'm not going to be able to remember my own name let alone some obscure dialect of Goa'uld that there are only two of us on this planet who could possibly translate. And I really don't think hurting me in new and interesting ways is going to make me feel any more co-operative, Trevalyn. I think it's much more likely to piss me off. And incidentally, I would love to see the paperwork on some of those artifacts in your…china cabinet there because I swear that Horus pendant used to be in the Metropolitan. And I have a feeling the provenance for some of these paintings wouldn't be too kosher either."

He'd thought one of the advantages to having short hair would be that people didn't get to drag you around by it, but that obviously didn't follow as the soldier grabbed a good handful and hauled him along the length of the rug before forcing him face down in front of Trevalyn. Someone else who seemed to think he was a god. He heard the soldier say, "Do you want me to…?"

"No." Trevalyn's voice was cool and incisive. "I think it's time we showed Doctor Jackson what we want him to translate. And as he has expressed an interest in my collection, I don't think it would be a bad idea if we also showed him some of the other…artifacts we have been fortunate enough to have come into our possession."

Spitting out a mouthful of rug, Daniel said shortly, "Artifacts that you stole, Trevalyn. You're a thief. You just happen to be a really, really rich one." He grunted with pain as he was hauled to his feet. He found the other soldier was already there. Oh great, a two-man escort. He felt their fingers twisting in the wet cloth of his jacket. They never seemed to grasp the fact he actually walked a lot better when he wasn't being dragged.

Trevalyn got to his feet, brushing off some microscopic dust particles from his beautiful gray suit as he did so. Daniel noticed the way the creases just fell out of it as the man stood up and he had to admit he was impressed. None of his suits did that. Well, neither of his suits did that. Nor did the one Jack had lent him which didn't really fit. Sam was always trying to persuade him to buy a new suit but he suspected one like Trevalyn's probably cost more than he would ever want to pay. Trevalyn glanced at his watch and Daniel would have been amazed if it hadn't been a Rolex. The man frowned. "It wouldn't do to miss dinner. I'd hate to hurt cook's feelings. We can look at the artifacts later." He nodded to the soldiers. "Bring him."

***

So far, I have to say Makepeace seems to be on the level. He's certainly acting like a guy who's very glad to be breathing clean air again and at the same time is also trying to remember the route to a house he was taken to by accident more than a year ago.

We've tried to be what Carter calls 'scientific' about it, which as far as I can tell is where you make gut instinct guesses then try to come up with some explanation for them. She's stayed at the Mountain liaising between the aerial recognizance helicopters, the SGC teams that have been mobilized, all the varying police reports that might or might not have some significance, and trying to match all of the above to the sketchy report Makepeace gave us. But with Aspen over to the east and the Rockies right on our doorstep, rich people, big houses, and trees are not an endangered species around here and there is one hell of a lot of ground to cover.

Teal'c's accompanied me, wedged into the back of the jeep with a zatgun held in readiness in case Makepeace tries anything. He hasn't said a word in three hours. A silent Jaffa is not usually a happy Jaffa which right now suits me fine. I want the people who took Daniel to pay big time for what they've almost certainly been doing to him for the last two and half days and I don't know a better man for the job than Teal'c.

Before we set out from the SGC, Makepeace described what he remembered of the house: the sweeping lawn, the cedars, forest nearby. He gave us a rough idea of how long he was in the city before he hit the countryside and anything he passed. It was a long drive, he said. A long drive. And we haven't even got started on the right route yet. There were six areas that looked like possibles from his description so there's an SGC team driving around quartering each one, and a helicopter in the sky taking aerial photographs to try and come up with something that matches what he remembers. Carter, like I said, got the job of co-coordinating everything and good luck to her because five minutes of that would give me the migraine to end all migraines…And Daniel has now been a prisoner of whoever is holding him for fifty six hours and counting. For six of which I have been driving my jeep around while Makepeace says, "Make a left here… Try down there… Make a right… No…this isn't it… Let's start again…"

I really don't think he's screwing with us. I think he's doing the best he can. Which is why I'm trying to be patient but, by my calculations, Daniel has now been a prisoner for fifty-six hours twelve minutes and counting and it takes about four seconds to break a human bone if you apply the right kind of pressure. Of course it takes even less time than that to pull the trigger of a gun, but I'm not thinking about that right now. It's not helping that as far as Makepeace is concerned Daniel cracked about fifty hours ago and has now finished his translation and is locked up tight in a holding cell eating a sandwich and having a cup of coffee. He keeps giving me these puzzled little frowns and saying, "They're not going to keep hurting him once he's done what they want, O'Neill."

Gritting my teeth, I stared fixedly at the road ahead. "Anything look familiar to you?"

"No."

"Let's go back to that last junction and make a left this time."

He shrugged but gave me another sideways look. "O'Neill, did you hear what I said?"

"I heard you."

"So, why are you still so pissy?"

"Daniel won't tell them squat, Makepeace." I was careful not to meet Teal'c's eyes as I said it quietly, trying to give each word equal weight. "He will never tell them anything no matter what they do to him, which if they got their intelligence on him from reports you were sending back is going to come as a hell of a shock to them. Which means by now they're running badly behind schedule and they're going to start cutting corners to get results. Which means Daniel is in serious trouble and we need to find him quickly."

"Jack, I understand your loyalty to a teammate but…"

I held up a hand. "For a start, Makepeace, Daniel isn't a 'team mate', Daniel's a friend. And next up - don't say it, okay? You don't know him. I do. And I know they're kicking the crap out of him right now, so will you please try to remember the way you were taken?" I didn't add that I reckoned he had about four more words in the friendly bank before Teal'c pulled the trigger on that zat gun, but I did give Teal'c a warning look, trying to remind him with just my eyebrows Makepeace was our best chance of getting Daniel back alive. Teal'c made a quiet sort of rumbling noise like one of those volcanoes that are supposed to be dormant then erupt the hell all over everyone, but he didn't actually pull the trigger.

We drove back to the junction and I took a left this time. Makepeace was still frowning but I ignored him. Right now I almost wish I didn't know Daniel so well. Then I could tell myself Makepeace was right, but I know him probably a little better than I know myself, and he is stubborn beyond belief. He also has very firm ideas about weapons and who has the right to use them. Daniel would give a Goa'uld weapon to a military splinter group about as willingly as he would give a bottle of sulfuric acid to a toddler. To be honest, if pushed I think Daniel would probably say that, just as anyone who wants to go into politics should automatically be debarred from becoming a politician, so anyone who wants to be a soldier should never be allowed to have a gun. He doesn't even think the official NID have the right to exist. He thinks Area 51 is an abomination and always talks about the Freedom of Information act every time anyone mentions the place; so an even more secret, answerable to no one group co-founded by Harold Maybourne - whom Daniel despises almost as much as he despises most Goa'uld - running around doing military things with Goa'uld weaponry is not a scenario Daniel is ever going to be able to get behind. That's the point, you see. This isn't just about an unprepared civilian being leaned on by a bunch of professional heavies to do a job for them; this is about an educated man with principals being told to break them. And that's something I just can't see Daniel agreeing to whatever the hell they do to him.

I darted a begging look at Makepeace, willing him to recognize something, anything, and for the first time he sat up straight in his seat and looked around with more interest. "Okay, I think this is more like it, O'Neill."

I reached for the handset straight away and called Carter. "Makepeace thinks we might be on the right road this time." I glanced back at Makepeace. "You said you went past a church, right? A church with a weathercock?"

I could hear Carter already hitting the keys on her computer, calling up aerial shots of the city, zeroing in on churches, giving me options. St Somebody's. St Somebody Else…All those damned martyrs. All those poor bastards who died for their beliefs so many centuries ago. All those innocents tortured and murdered because they wouldn't back down, going to the stake or the wheel or the sword for the sake of something intangible and unprovable. I guess that's why they call it faith.

"That one." Makepeace stabbed at the screen at the image Carter had sent him of a church with a weathercock.

"St Luke's," she told me through the headset, giving me directions with a little hope wrapped around them as I heard her trying and failing to keep the excitement from her voice.

I looked at my watch. Fifty-seven hours. Hang in there, Daniel. This time we're really coming.

***

"Are you hungry, Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel swallowed. His teeth had finally stopped chattering and the shivering had faded to manageable levels. His stomach felt like someone had wrapped an iron band around it then pulled it tight before kicking him hard in the solar plexus. Given the amount of cold water they'd been throwing on him the last few days he was astonished at how thirsty he felt. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he smelled the food. He'd been light-headed on the starvation highs until then, but now, yes, he was hungry. Nothing had ever smelled better to him than whatever it was in that silver bowl with the steam coming out of it. He wrapped his arms around himself a little tighter and said, "No."

"No?"

He met the man's amused gaze unflinchingly. "No." Not even a lie. Because he realized now he wasn't hungry. He was starving. Famished. Ravenous. Hungry didn't even come close.

"Doctor Jackson. I have tried to make allowances for you. I have tried to…co-ordinate your persuasion so your usefulness as a tool in the ongoing struggle against the Goa'uld will not be diminished, but I now feel the time has come to…insist upon your co-operation."

Daniel looked at the white linen tablecloth, the polished mahogany table with its corners diagonally exposed. More lilies in a crystal vase. Perhaps the man was in mourning? He was torn between snatching a piece of bread and swallowing it whole and laying his head down on the cloth and closing his eyes. An elbow jabbed into his ribs made him sit up with a jolt.

"Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel moistened his lips, swallowed, focused. "Yes?"

Trevalyn sawed delicately at a steak, removed a small piece, popped it into his mouth, chewed, savored, washed it down with a mouthful of red wine before continuing evenly, "If you won't co-operate, I am going to ask my assistant to cut off one of your fingers."

"Oh." Daniel looked back down at the tablecloth. Everything seemed to be happening a long way off and to someone else but he did still know that was a warning. In fact that sounded like one of those gears being moved up Jack had told him about. Time to move to stage two then. Time to start lying. He cleared his throat then muttered, "Maybe, I could just take a look at the…?"

Trevalyn smiled, one of those small satisfied smiles that always made Daniel's teeth itch with irritation. "At the artifact, Doctor Jackson? Certainly." He nodded to the soldier. "Escort Doctor Jackson to the relic room, will you?"

Daniel tensed as he felt the now-familiar hands seize his jacket and yank him to his feet. This had certainly got old very quickly. Jack was always telling him he needed to take an hour a week to polish his cheating and lying skills. That was what all those poker games were for, Jack always insisted, and yes, damned right they had to play for money. Daniel was never going to learn how to win if losing didn't hurt a little. As he was yanked away from the smell of hot meat and warm bread and oh-God-he-was-so-hungry, Daniel tried to think of an occasion when he had beaten Jack at poker. As he was all but thrown through the doorway into a wide corridor with a parquet floor and yet more rugs, Daniel remembered oh yes that was right, he'd never beaten Jack at poker. Not once.

***

Trying to remember a route you've only ever seen by daylight as night starts falling isn't fun. And in the moments when I didn't want to beat Makepeace's head against the windshield until it bled, I had a lot of sympathy for him. I don't suppose Teal'c and I breathing down the back of his neck was helping him feel any calmer either, but I did hope it might be keeping him focused on the problem at hand.

I looked at my watch. "Sixty two hours, Makepeace. No pressure or anything."

"Damnit, O'Neill, I'm doing the best I can."

Teal'c said something in Chulakian that sounded like he didn't think Makepeace's best was good enough. I had to agree with him there.

Carter's voice came through on the headset. "SG-6 and SG-8 have come up blank, sir. Have you made any progress?"

"Makepeace thinks we're on the right road," I told her. "He just hasn't recognized anything we've passed for the last half an hour."

There was silence from her end for a minute as she presumably tried and failed to think of something comforting. When she did speak again she sounded so choked up I realized I'd miscalculated. Carter was hanging on by her fingernails just as much as Teal'c and I were. "It's been…a while since they took him."

I looked at my watch. "Sixty-two hours and seven minutes since the phone company said the line was ripped out of the wall."

There was another ominous pause but then her voice came through a little shaky but definitely stronger. The same way she'd told her father he wasn't going to die down in Netu. "You're on the right road, sir. You're definitely on the right road."

I took off my cap and ran a hand through my hair. "Because we have to be, right?"

"Right."

I put the cap back on again. "I'm hearing you, Carter, loud and clear. We're on the right road, and we're going to get Daniel back. Tonight. Alive."

"Yes, sir." No one could have been more emphatic than Carter was on that point.

I clicked off the radio, put my foot down harder on the gas, and looked across at Makepeace. "You heard the Major, Makepeace. We're on the right road. Now start looking out for the turn-off to the forest you said you went through."

***

It was a like being in a private museum. Each room they dragged him through had display cases and cabinets filled with treasures he would, under different circumstances, have loved to examine. In fact, even under these circumstances, he would have liked a few minutes to at least see what Trevalyn had managed to accumulate. The soldiers were unsympathetic to his curiosity and kept yanking him past all those fascinating blurs with ruthless determination.

The birds' eggs were a pleasant confirmation he'd guessed right. The Minoan treasures were tantalizing. As were Anglo-Saxon swords which Daniel couldn't help coveting as he was hauled past them, craning his neck to get a last look at a blade with an odd bluish sheen that was very beguiling. The last room was devoted to Egyptian artifacts, and here Daniel did dig his heels into the carpet in a determined attempt to at least slow his forward progress.

"Wait! Damnit! Wait!" There was a steatite statue at eyelevel that looked so like Amaunet he felt his heart turn over. Sha're's breath-taking beauty, but the arrogance of the Goa'uld. The delicate nose, arching eyebrows, those almond shaped eyes…all so like Sha're, but the mouth wasn't hers, it was down-turned, immobile, pitiless. He swallowed as the room swayed around him and then realized what he was looking at.

"Tiye. Of course." Daniel wiped a hand across his mouth automatically, hardly registering the thin wash of blood it left across his skin. "Not Amaunet. Tiye. Wife of Amenhotep III, mother of Akhenaten, daughter of Yuya and Tuyu." He wondered if Sha're's ancestors had been related to that middle class Eighteenth Dynasty girl who had risen to become a queen and the mother of a king. Had Tiye wanted to be Amenhotep's queen any more than Sha're had wanted to be Apophis'…?

The soldiers started dragging him forward again, but Daniel grabbed at a table and held on tight. Not only was this room fascinating but this was the only remotely pleasant thing that had happened to him since the ugly twins had kidnapped him Friday night. They owed him five minutes to look around.

There was a blue and white shabti figure of Ptahmose in as good condition as the one August Mariette had excavated in 1881. Daniel frowned. Perhaps it was the little statue excavated by Mariette that had been in the Cairo Museum the last time he'd seen it. He wouldn't have put it past his captor to steal anything from anyone. His heart gave another lurch as he saw a carved box in the display cabinet. It was about ten inches in length and three wide, unremarkable really. There was a little drawer inside you kept the pieces in. You played with counters on the top, blue and black counters moving across little squares of bone. A Senet box. His father had taught him the game when he was a child and he still remembered the feel of the pieces in his fingers, the way the blue-green faience always stayed so cold to the touch. He'd described it to Teal'c once and been shocked to find how much the loss of it still hurt, a wound he'd thought healed over which had turned out to be an exposed nerve, a sentence he simply couldn't finish. He'd had to break off when the compassion in Teal'c's dark eyes became too much for him to cope with. Now Daniel turned away quickly only to meet another memory imprisoned in a display cabinet: a scarab sculpted from an amethyst so dark it was almost black. He remembered his mother holding one up in front of the lamp for him so he could see the deep purple glow of its stone. Her voice saying, "So, Danny, which god is the scarab beetle associated with?"

He murmured the answer now: "Khepri."

"Why?"

A six year-old Daniel Jackson, hating to have to admit to ignorance but even more eager to hear the answer. "I don't know."

"It was because he was a symbol of rebirth. The Ancient Egyptians associated these dung balls with the rising sun, which they believed was pushed over the horizon each morning by a scarab beetle. So these scarabs were symbols of rebirth and regeneration. Of new beginnings if you like."

He remembered her beckoning him closer, turning the scarab so the light shone through its center, revealing the hieroglyphic inscription buried in it like a secret. A secret he now knew as well. That shared smile as knowledge was passed on. Understood. Remembered.

Daniel swallowed hard, hardly resisting as the soldier angrily jerked him away from the cabinets. He'd lost so many of his parents' possessions. When you were a child, people didn't think you needed Egyptian artifacts. Well-meaning colleagues had taken them for themselves or given them to museums. They hadn't realized how much he needed to have those things around him; needed a scarab to hold in front of the lamplight like other children took comfort in a teddy bear. How else could he prove he'd once been something other than an orphan? That his parents weren't just something he'd dreamed?

As he was tugged towards the next door, he really meant to go quietly but the contents of the last cabinet caught his attention and he started struggling again.

"Wait! Wait!" Wishing vainly for his glasses, Daniel squinted at the contents of the last cabinet. "Are those canopic jars?" He struggled free from the hands on his jacket, grabbing the side of the cabinet to stop them just yanking him on through the room.

"Are you admiring my collection, Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel turned to see Trevalyn smiling at him from the doorway. The same smile he hadn't liked in the dining room. It didn't look any better in here. This time Daniel smiled in return. "Um…I hate to tell you this, Trevalyn, but these are wrongly labeled. You've got them as Twelfth Dynasty, but they can't be because the four sons of Horus were only portrayed with animal heads from the beginning of the New Kingdom. And they're not a set. They couldn't possibly have contained the organs from the same body unless the deceased had no liver. See - you've got Duamutef with the jackal head, Qebehsenuef with the head of a falcon and Hapy with the head of a baboon, but this fourth one should be Imseti who was always presented with human features but instead it's…"

"Get him out of here."

Even as he was grabbed and wrenched violently towards the doorway, Daniel couldn't help feeling he'd got a little of his own back there.

As he was bodily hurled into a long white-walled room with trestle tables laid out in neatly symmetrical rows, Daniel realized he was going to have to use the glow from that small victory to keep him warm for a while because he hadn't seen so much Goa'uld weaponry since he'd been on Apophis' warship as it was heading for the Earth.

***

There are a lot of good reasons why you don't do eighty along a twisting forest road after a high wind has brought down a whole load of trees. There are even better reasons to do exactly that when a friend is being held prisoner by someone who probably isn't looking after him any too well. However, you do need to have very fast reflexes and be prepared to wrench the wheel about, swear a lot, and rattle the hell out of your passengers. Well, 'passenger' I should say because I knew without looking Teal'c never so much as blinked even when the jeep was leaning over on two wheels and death seemed imminent. Makepeace, however, had the set look Daniel gets if you make him get on a Ferris wheel: the 'I'm going through with this if it kills me' expression.

In fact, making Daniel go up really, really high doesn't actually kill him, but if you're unwise enough to feed him before you make him go on a Ferris wheel then he does throw up afterwards. In your jeep on the way home, in my experience. Which, as he pointed out, really served me right. But while I can just about deal with cleaning up after Daniel, I draw the line at cleaning up after Makepeace. As I felt the wheels spin on the pine needles then wrenched the jeep back onto the track I leant across and wound down Makepeace's window. "If you have to throw up, do it outside."

I heard an owl hoot as the scent of resin and encroaching dusk wafted in to mingle with the now familiar odors of human sweat and impatience.

Gripping hold of the door handle, Makepeace said rigidly, "At least we know we're on the right road."

"You said it was a long road, right?"

Carter's voice came over the radio right on cue and the fact she sounded excited told me straight away things were definitely looking better. "Sir, I think you're almost there now. There's a large house in its own grounds about fifteen miles west of your current position. You need to make a left in approximately ten miles, follow that road for four miles and then make a right through some iron gates. There will probably be security cameras and guards."

I nodded. "That's no more than we expected."

"General Hammond says you're to wait for back-up. He's dispatched three other SGC teams and he says they're half an hour behind you."

I noted and approved the non-committal way Carter managed to pass on that information. "Thanks for sharing, Major."

"And, sir?"

"Yes, Carter."

"We just heard from Washington. Maybourne is denying all knowledge of Daniel's kidnap."

"Well, that's a shocker."

"And they can't find any evidence to tie him into it."

There was a moment's silence in which I deliberately didn't meet Teal'c's eye. So Maybourne was guiltless in Daniel's kidnap, was he? Like hell he was. Maybe there wasn't a telephone conversation or a meeting connecting him to it, but don't tell me he hadn't known it was going to happen and don't tell me this wasn't payback for me fooling him.

Carter said, "Colonel, you have kept in mind these people have access to Goa'uld weapons, haven't you? Possibly other technology as well. Things we might not have seen before."

I said mock-seriously,