• Spoilers: shades of Grey, Meridian
• Summary: SG1 does A Christmas Carol
• PG-13 [A] [AU] [D]

Jack shoved the door closed behind him with a satisfying slam, grateful to be home at last and out of the view of prying eyes that couldn't accept that he was the bastard he had pretended to be since they'd arrived on Tollana earlier that day. With a long sigh filled with self-loathing, he headed straight for the liquor cabinet and poured himself a stiff shot of bourbon.

Jack hated what the Asgard and Tollans wanted him to do, hated himself for agreeing to keep the entire mess of deception from his friends and teammates in the first place.. If they trusted him they trusted SG1; it was a package deal. Besides which, SG1 did not lie to one another. Time and time again they'd learned that lesson and learned it well. It went against everything Jack held dear to shut out the very people he'd come to count on to watch his back.

It had been bad enough just sitting through the briefing – at least there he'd had one person who knew nothing he was saying was the truth, that he wasn't the cold blooded stranger his team looked at with such utter incomprehension. In a way, it was a testament to the faith they had come to have in one another after three years of service; three years of shared sweat, blood, pain and tears he was undermining with every moment he allowed this charade to continue.

But what else could he do? The rogue operation was threatening three of the most important alliances Earth had and they wouldn't have a chance of making things right unless he could smoke out the perpetrators. He had no choice but to do it…right?

Pouring another shot of bourbon, Jack stepped across the room to look out of the patio windows.. He wished it would snow; snow would make everything seem clean again. It was Christmas Eve, dammit; there should be snow on the ground to cover the world's sins and a chill in the air to match the one in his heart.

Winding his way to his bedroom, Jack threw himself across the bed. Too disgusted with himself to even undress, Jack realized was just as unconvinced as he had been when he'd arrived home. Nothing about this situation felt right and he knew it was only a matter of time before one of his friends came knocking at his door seeking answers to questions he would undoubtedly be forced to outright lie to answer.

He could do it; there was no question in his mind.. Years of covert training and experience had made him a very accomplished liar when the situation called for it. But he had never, in his entire career, lied to his friends or family except to evade the need to know rule. SG1 was his family now in every way that mattered to him, and he knew the time was coming soon when he would have no choice but to cut its heart out.

~*~

Heavy rock music was playing somewhere, penetrating itself into Jack's troubled sleep. Damn neighbors, didn't they know this was not a night for noise and celebration?

Light from the open bedroom door penetrated his slightly alcohol dimmed senses and rose up in the bed. He hadn't left the lights on…hell, he hadn't even turned them on when he came home. As adrenaline shot into his system, he woke up enough to realize the music he'd thought was coming from a nearby house was in fact coming from his living room…

Reaching into his bedside drawer, Jack slid out the 9 millimeter he kept there and unlocked the trigger guard as quietly as possible. Shaking his head to clear the last of the alcohol fog, he walked carefully to the door and peeked out.

There was someone…dancing…in his living room. From where he stood, he could tell it was a man, not too tall, short dark hair. The man's back was turned to Jack as he flipped through his CD collection. Of all the things he didn't need tonight, a thief who sidelined as a music critic was top of the list.

Slipping down the stairs, instinctively bypassing the one that squeaked, Jack got up right behind his midnight visitor and pointed the gun into his neck.

"I don't know what the hell you're doing here, but move and I separate your head from the rest of you…."

"A little too late for that, isn't it, Jack?

A familiar voice, a voice from the past that could not possibly be standing in his house listening to his music…

"Kawalsky?"

~*~

As impossible as it seemed there was Charlie Kawalsky standing in front of him…grinning that 'bite me' grin Jack remembered so well, and looking entirely too real for a dead man.

"Don't look so shocked, Jack…it really is me."

Jack knew his eyes reflected his disbelief. Though he'd backed away to let the Kawalsky turn around, he still had his gun trained right in the center of the…man's…chest.

"You're dead, Kawalsky…"

"Details, details…" the image of Kawalsky said dismissively.

"Pretty important detail. You're dead, you can't be here making yourself at home with my CD collection."

"Hey, some of these are mine…don't you ever return stuff you borrow? And why didn't you take my stereo anyway? I said you could…"

No one else had been present when Jack had jokingly asked Kawalsky for his stereo if the operation to remove the goa'uld he'd been infested with failed. No one else could know that but….

"It really is me, Jack…."

Lowering the gun, Jack reached out a hand to touch the previously believed to be dead friend in front of him, and was only mildly surprised when his hand went right through him.

"Really?"

Kawalsky shrugged. "Yeah, well, except for that one little difference…."

With a long-suffering sigh at the frequent absurdities in his life since coming into contact with the Stargate, Jack sat down on his sofa, his disbelief suspended about as far as he could manage it for one night.

"So …and don’t get me wrong it’s great seeing you again, but… why are you here?"

Suddenly, Kawalsky’s mischievous grin faded and he sat down beside Jack. "I’m here because you are about to make the worst screw up of your life second to…"

Kawalsky didn’t have to finish the sentence for Jack to know what it he would have said. Second only to Charlie. Second only to leaving his gun in a place where a ten year old could find it, point it, pull the trigger…

Jack swallowed hard against the hard bitter tears born of past mistakes and the conviction of wrongness that had haunted him since he’d agreed to his current course of action. Could that be what Kawalsky was talking about?

"The mission?"

With a slow nod, Kawalsky reached out a hand toward Jack then pulled it back as if he remembered suddenly that he was a ghost. Kawalsky always had been on the touchy-feely side, Jack thought, it must kill him not to be able to…

The surrealness of the whole situation struck Jack. It was just too weird. He was sitting in his living room in the middle of Christmas Eve night listening to The Drifters and talking to the ghost of a former friend he’d not only watched die but had essentially ordered to be killed.

"There’s no choice in this, Charlie. Not if we want to keep the allies happy."

"And what about your team, Jack?"

Not really believing his own words, Jack shrugged dismissively. "They’ll be okay. At least they’ll be safe not knowing…."

"Will they, Jack? Can you be sure?"

Jack shook his head; of course, he couldn’t be sure. No one could be sure of anything in life, but it was the way things had to be. He had to believe NID would leave the others alone as long as they acted like they didn’t know anything… because that was the only way to justify to himself what he was doing was right.

"Do you even know where your friends are right now? It’s Christmas Eve, what do you think they’re up to?"

"They're probably at home in bed where I ought to be, I might add…."

Kawalsky reached out to Jack, two fingers extended and touched him on the shoulder.

"Guess again."

~*~

One moment Jack was standing around in his living room beside a dead man, the next he was standing on a balcony that looked more than a little familiar. It was Daniel's place.

He was still standing beside the dead man.

"Why are we here, Kawalsky?"

The dead man nodded toward the balcony doors. Jack stepped closer to the glass and was surprised to see not only was Daniel awake, he had company. Teal'c and Carter were there and they were huddled together on the sofa watching a clearly agitated Daniel pace the land mine of breakables in his living room.

Looking back at Kawalsky, Jack asked, "What's going on?"

"Just having a look at how your friends are spending their Christmas Eve. Not exactly nestled snug in their beds are they?"

No, they definitely weren't. But why weren't they?

From one moment to the next, Jack found himself inside the apartment. Daniel was still pacing, fast and furious the way he always did when he had something stuck in his brain he had to work out. The speed, length of paces, and level of distraction were indicators Jack had learned to decipher well over the years.

As Daniel veered straight in his direction, Jack tried to move out of the way and experienced yet another moment of surreal acceptance as Daniel passed right through him.

"We aren't really here, Jack." Kawalsky commented helpfully.

Jack favored him with a sour look. "Of course we aren't here. I drank too much last night and I'm dreaming this whole thing."

Kawalsky snorted. "Two shots of bourbon, Jack? This is happening, believe it. But we aren't physically here…they can't hear or see us."

"Why not?"

"Let me explain…" Kawalsky hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "Scratch that…Just trust me. It's the way it has to be. This is something you need to see."

Jack had always trusted Charlie Kawalsky…but that had been when he was alive. Now?

Daniel had stopped pacing, finally sitting down in a chair opposite Carter and Teal'c and steepling his hands in a way that told Jack he was about to launch into speculation.

"We agree this 'behavior' isn't like Jack?" The other two nodded emphatically and Jack felt a rush of warmth flow over him at their continued faith in him. Daniel nodded as well, adding his agreement. "So…why is he doing it?"

Carter's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Well, that's the big question, isn't it?"

Daniel nodded again. "Yes, it is. There are two probable answers: he's sick…which Janet says he isn't…or he's got no choice."

"But, Daniel…how could anyone force him to steal technology from an ally then act like….that?"

Daniel sighed unhappily. "Good question. It would have to be a hell of a good reason. Knowing Jack it would have to be more important, more vital than lying to us to make us believe he's gone bad."

The simple faith of Daniel's statement, the refusal to believe the evidence of his own eyes and ears made Jack ashamed…..a feeling he had thought far removed from the man he'd become. He had hurt and confused his friends and, rather than accepting that hurt for what it seemed on the surface, they were looking for excuses for him. Daniel was only one intuitive leap away from guessing the truth, but damn it, they couldn't figure it out, it wasn't safe.

"But he will, Jack. You know the doc when he gets like this. He will figure it out and you're going to have to go a lot farther than a few insults to stop him."

Jack knew it was true. The only way to confuse Daniel when he got all obsessive and focused like this was to engage his emotions, make him mad as a hornet and hope it threw him off the synaptic trail. It wasn't a conversation Jack looked forward to…the last thing in hell he wanted was to hurt his friend more than he already had.

Carter looked more than a little skeptical. "But Daniel…it just doesn't make sense…."

Daniel looked up at her quickly. "None of this makes sense, Sam. But there has to be a reason…"

As Daniel moved to get up and pace again, Jack noticed the sympathetic look on Carter's face. She wanted to believe, he could see that, but her natural pessimism was holding her back. "I hope so, Daniel."

She stood up then, nodding to Teal'c that she was ready to go. The jaffa had been very quiet through it all, but Jack recognized the big man's look at Daniel Teal'c carried his own kind of faith; he believed in Daniel and if Daniel thought there was more to a situation than met the eye Teal'c would back him up all the way. Which just made the situation doubly dangerous.

Teal'c put a hand on Daniel's shoulder, radiating support in a way only he could. As Carter kissed Daniel on the cheek and headed for the door, he pulled himself out of his thoughts and finally seemed to realize they were leaving. He walked them to the door and Jack couldn't stop himself from following.

As they bid each other goodnight, there was an undercurrent of intense unhappiness in their words and gestures as if someone in their family had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness…as much as they wanted to believe everything would be okay, logically they knew they were only delaying the inevitable.

Daniel closed the door with a sigh, threw the deadbolt, then leaned against it, still lost in his thoughts.

"What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Jack?"

Jack wanted to reach out to his friend, but knew he couldn't. He also knew he had to stop Daniel from connecting any more dots. It was just too damn dangerous and there was no way Daniel would keep quiet now that he had latched onto a theory and had no answers. He could blow the whole operation, they would lose the Asgard, Nox, and Tollans as allies and – more importantly to Jack – Daniel would place himself in a kind of danger no one could prepare him for. Daniel was damn good at fighting enemies he could see…always had been, but his aim had definitely improved…but what they were up against now was an enemy based within and among them. The bad guys were wearing the white hats too and the only way to flush them out into the open was to become one of them.

As much as Daniel's faith touched Jack's heart and warmed his soul, he knew he had no choice but to shatter it in order to keep the man safe.

"There are always choices, Jack."

~*~

One moment he'd been standing in Daniel's foyer with a dead guy the next he was back in his living room holding a handful of CD's. Kawalsky's CD's. He dropped them on the floor as if they were radioactive, jumping back with his heart hammering in his chest.

It was all just too strange. No way could it have been real. Could it? According to the clock it was just past one in the morning. He'd come downstairs only a few minutes before midnight. Maybe it was a dream after all.. Maybe the bourbon had been bad. Maybe he was letting his guilt get the better of him because he hated what this mission was forcing him to do.

Maybe he was finally cracking under the pressure…

"Happens to the best of us, Jack."

Jack jumped again, reaching for the gun on his stereo as he recognized the voice behind him. He turned and pointed the gun straight at the man's chest. What the hell….?

"Harry?"

Harry Maybourne was sitting on Jack's sofa, feet propped up on his coffee table, drinking his bourbon as if he owned the place. Harry grinned up at Jack, saluting him with the bottle of bourbon before taking a long swig.

"Hello, Jack…"

"What the hell are you doing here, Maybourne?"

"I'm not here, Jack. Not really. I'm just a, um, manifestation of your subconscious mind here to remind you of a few things. For your own good, of course."

Jack snorted, keeping the gun level. "So if I pull this trigger, your manifested butt won't splatter all over my sofa?"

The Harry manifestation shook his head. "Won't do much for you sofa though. This is damn fine leather."

"Thanks, cost me an arm and a leg…" Jack caught himself and shook his head at the inanity of the conversation. "What the hell do you mean 'for my own good'? Since when have you ever given a damn what was good for me or not?"

"Jack, you wound me…"

"Not yet, give me a few more minutes of this bullshit though and who knows…?"

Maybourne stood up and sighed. "It's your subconscious, Jack. I'm here because somewhere in the back of your mind you know I'm what you could be someday. Given enough time and enough good reasons to shut out the people who help you stay on the right side of the line, you could be me."

The very thought was enough to make Jack shudder in revulsion. He wanted to protest, to say it could never happen, to say it would be a cold day in hell before he ever became as bad as Harry Maybourne - perpetual bad boy for the NID. But he knew it was true. It could happen, given the right circumstances and no reason to care to stop it. He'd almost died more than once in his life being the good soldier…the last time he had been more than ready for it thinking no one would give a damn anyway, especially him.. Oh, yeah, as much as he hated to admit the fact, it could happen.

"So what do you want, Harry?"

The shade of Maybourne grinned. "Just a little trip down memory lane, Jack. Easy enough for a couple of old soldiers like us. Drink before we go?"

The bottle was offered in his direction but Jack shook his head. He had a bad feeling about what the pseudo-Maybourne was up to already, besides no way was he drinking after the slime…whether it was really him or not.

"Go where?"

Maybourne reached out to touch Jack's shoulder and they were no longer in Jack's warm living room. It was dark, damn dark, a cool breeze blew the sand under their feet around in lazy patterns.

"Where the hell are we?"

"Look up, Jack."

Having nothing better to do, Jack did…and realized the stars above them were not the stars he knew on any part of Earth. It looked familiar though…

Maybourne directed Jack's attention behind them and he saw the large pyramid he recognized immediately. Definitely Abydos. But when?

A scream from inside the pyramid sent Jack instinctively running to help.. It was a woman's voice, and she was in pain. He came to halt in front of a curtained alcove he recognized. It was Sha're and Daniel's little hideaway they used not only for privacy from the rest of the clan but to allow Daniel to be closer to his work.. He remembered Daniel mentioning it more than once on missions when nights were too long and ghosts wouldn't let him sleep.

Peeking into the curtain, Jack saw Sha're lying on a pallet in the floor, her swelled stomach contracting visibly. As she lay there panting against her pain, Daniel swiped her face in long strokes meant to comfort, but his hands were shaking and his eyes seemed awash in the clear inability to do anything more to help…

For a moment Jack thought he was witnessing the birth of Apophis' child before he realized the Daniel before him was the twin of the one they had returned to Abydos to retrieve three years ago. The scruffy hair, the glasses held together by twine, the lean face and hands exuding a surface image of youth in a man who Jack sometimes suspected had been born old.

Their child? Daniel and Sha're hadn't had children….

"No, they didn't…" Harry remarked at his shoulder.

It felt wrong for Harry to be here. Hell, it felt wrong for Jack to be here. Whatever had happened on this long ago day it was between Daniel and the wife he adored. They shouldn't be here…

"Just wait…" Harry urged, his voice almost gentle.

"Dan'yel? It is your Christmas, it is good our child should come this day…"

As Sha're tensed under another brutal contraction, Daniel nodded his head against hers where it lay on his shoulder, placing a tender, tearful kiss on her cheek. Knowing Daniel as he did, Jack could tell something about Sha're's labor was wrong….and that Daniel knew it.

"Tell me again, Dan'yel. Tell me the story…"

Blinking back his tears, Daniel recited the Biblical story of the first Christmas, as faithfully as Jack could remember it. Daniel used the words - as he always did - as a comfort, as a defense, as a distraction, as a way to keep himself from falling apart when someone else needed him to be strong. A lot of things had changed about Daniel over the years, but not that one.

As Sha're focused on her husband's voice, she seemed to ride out the pain, seemed to calm with every word Daniel infused with the magic of the story and the peace of the lesson to be learned in it. Jack could feel every pain, suffered through every contraction just as Daniel did, just as he had when Charlie was born, and did not give so much as a damn who saw that he cried along with them when the tiny body of Sha're and Daniel's dead child finally arrived.

Why hadn't Daniel ever told him?

Of course, Jack already knew the answer. Despite accusations to the contrary, Daniel didn't wear his heart on his sleeve and he didn't share his pain easily. And this kind of pain, so intimately personal to Jack, was one Daniel would never share.

The only Christmas Daniel and Sha're had been given and it was a day Daniel would always remember as one on which he'd lost his only child, lost it before he'd ever had a chance to know it.

An almost gentle hand on his shoulder made Jack turn around, uncaring that his cheeks were still wet with the evidence of how deeply he understood Daniel's pain.

"Ready to go, Jack? We have a few more stops to make…"

Jack had no idea what Maybourne meant, but he was more than ready to go. Looking back one last time on the tableau of two people in love holding the still form that should have embodied that love for generations to come, Jack knew he didn't belong there. It was a pain too personal to be shared except by choice.

Clearing his throat, Jack nodded. "Where to?"

~*~

A swirl of sand and they were suddenly elsewhere. A dark forest, another set of unfamiliar stars….

Maybourne pointed toward a warm glow among the trees. Jack could see a flickering campfire and there was the sound of voices …his team's voices, he'd know them anywhere.

Moving closer Jack recognized both the place and the time. Their first Christmas as a team, stuck offworld for some reason to do with computer glitches they'd long since worked out. At first they had been a little depressed. They'd planned a huge dinner to indoctrinate Teal'c to the holiday properly and bought presents .. Jack had even bought a tree to put them under…at least that had been the excuse he had given for dragging them all off to the tree farm and bribing them with KFC so they'd help him set it up.

Thinking back now he wondered why he hadn't thought it strange that none of them had protested they had other plans, other places to be. They'd been a team just over nine months at the time, nine months of adjustments and fantastic elements of a world grown infinitely larger because of the Stargate. Nine months of melding into a unit that was the envy of the command and becoming the kind of team - and friends - no one who was not part of such a thing could ever hope to understand.

Watching his team, his absurdly young looking team, Jack smiled.. They were sharing coffee and chocolate from the bottomless stash Daniel had long ago stopped carrying along on every mission. They'd talked most of the night, explaining the facts and fallacies of Christmas Teal'c had picked up from watching too much unsupervised television.

The night had been as ideal a one as Jack had ever known and he remembered the feeling of 'rightness' about it all. Slowly the talk had wound down and they had simply sat in silence, enjoying the warm night, the good company, and the magic of Christmas spent with people they knew they could count on no matter what. After who knew how long, Carter had sung Silent Night, not the greatest voice in the world but in that place and time just right. The song had, of course, intrigued Teal'c and, somewhat reluctantly, Daniel had explained.

For some reason Jack had initially equated that reluctance with disapproval, with the scoffing he always expected from scientists when it came to matters of faith. It wasn't something they'd ever discussed to that point, or really very much after, but Jack had learned over time that faith was something both academic and personal to Daniel. It was another topic he didn't discuss often, but when he did it was always interesting and always seemed so contradictory in a man of science. Then again, Jack had also learned that Daniel wore his science like a warm, ragged coat…he never let his science wear him. It was a fine distinction but an important one when it came to understanding Daniel.

Knowing what he knew now and looking from the outside in, Jack could see the traces of sadness in Daniel's eyes and the same look of helpless loss he had seen only moments before in another place and time in Daniel's life. Telling the same story, in nearly the same tone of voice had to have hurt like hell. But Daniel did it…sharing not only the story, but also the peripheral pain as they responded to his voice much like Sha're had…taking peace and comfort from the man who never denied it to them. Every Christmas since he'd shared the same story.

All in all, one of the best Christmases Jack had ever known. A good memory, a good place to be….he'd almost forgotten it.

"Good boy, Jack…"

"Can it, Harry."

The shade of Maybourne grinned. "You bet, Jack…."

And then they were gone again.

~*~

Another night, a sky he recognized this time and a house he more than recognized.

"No, no, no. no…."

"Come on, Jack…one last stop."

Jack just stared at the house in front of him; the house he'd lived in so happily until his son had died in it. The Christmas lights adorning every available eave and hedge told him Charlie was still alive inside that house. This was a happy Christmas sometime in his past when all was right and real and solid in his life. Everything in him wanted to go inside, but he also wanted to run away. He wasn't sure he could face seeing it all, seeing what still hurt so damn much knowing it was gone forever. He just stood there, caught up between memories of those times and knowledge it wasn't real…could never be real again.

Harry nudged his shoulder. "Never figured you for an emotional coward, Jack. Don't you want to see them again?"

Even knowing it wasn't real, Jack couldn't resist…with all his strength he swung his fist at Harry's superior sneer making light of a part of his life that was closed to all but his closest friends. He stumbled a bit as his passed right through the supercilious face, not at all satisfied knowing that if Harry had been real he'd be lying in a heap in the middle of what had once been his driveway.

Laughter from inside the house drew his attention. A child's laugh…Charlie's laugh. The sound drew him forward in a way nothing else ever could. He'd heard that laugh so many times in dreams, in the chatter of a crowd of people when some other child came so close to recreating the sound Jack loved more than any other in the world.

He moved toward the window in a daze of mixed emotions, he wanted to see yet he didn't, he wanted it to be real but knew it never could be again….

The interior of the house was every bit as festive as he remembered. From the large bulky wrapped present leaning against the wall behind the tree he even knew what Christmas it was. Charlie had been seven and they'd bought him his first bike. Jack had made way too much noise bringing it in from the garage and Charlie had woken up thinking it was already Christmas. It had taken some pretty impressive maneuvering by both him and Sara to keep the excited little boy out of the living room. A few mad dashes around the kitchen and they'd all ended up on the stairs in a laughing heap of warmth and togetherness. Jack remembered thinking nothing in his life would ever be as perfect as that moment.

His family was on the stairs now and Jack didn't need to be able to hear them to know what was being said.

The simple beauty of his son's unconditional love and faith had always brought tears to Jack's eyes and now was no different. He'd held the world in his hands that night and he'd never even known it until it was too damn late.

"Get me out of here, Harry."

Maybourne was standing at his shoulder, had been for a while Jack supposed but he was surprised when the man just nodded - and then they were gone….

~*~

He was back on his couch; the bottle of bourbon in his hand he would almost suspect was the true culprit in all the weirdness this night had been. He was drunk, he had to be. He'd never gone to bed at all, but had sat there drinking for hours. It was the only possible, rational explanation. He had been sitting here getting sloppily drink and sappy and all the rest of it was just his own guilty conscience playing with his memories and fears. That was it, had to be it.

Charlie Kawalsky was safely cold and dead in his grave…sadly missed but dead just the same. Harry Maybourne was off doing whatever it was oozing purple slime did on Christmas Eve when no one in their right mind wanted them to share their festivities.

And his team? His team was fine…they had to be fine. A few days, a week at the most and Jack would be able to share the whole sorry story and they could go out over a drink, laugh it off, then things would go back to normal again.

"Tell yourself another one, O'Neill…" he mumbled, taking a long pull on the bottle. This situation was nothing like anything they'd been through before. There was no alien influence, no drugs, no viruses, nothing he could blame it on but paranoid allies and his 'duty'. Jack had learned a long time ago that duty could screw up every good thing in his life if he didn't guard against it and yet he'd allowed himself to be convinced that lying to his team was the right thing to do. Now he was stuck in the hole he'd helped dig himself into…he was being watched and he couldn't do a damn thing to let on to his friends that he wasn't the regressed asshole he seemed to be.

"But we already know that, don’t we?"

Jack jumped at the sound of Daniel's voice, sliding off the couch with a hard thump onto his backside and sending the chess pieces on the coffee table flying in all directions.

"Daniel? What are you doing here in the middle of the night? And how the hell did you get in…?"

While he was blustering to cover his embarrassment at not only being caught unaware, but also caught waxing maudlin over a bunch of bourbon induced dreams, Jack had also been trying to get off the floor. It was harder than it should have been; he'd gotten wedged between the coffee table and the sofa. "Give me a hand here, will ya'?"

Daniel looked down at him with affectionate amusement. "Would if I could, Jack…."

Ceasing his struggle to make his mass configure itself to fit the available extracting space, Jack really looked at Daniel. Only then did he notice Daniel wasn't wearing his coat…and it wasn't anywhere else in sight. Something else was odd too…Daniel's hair wasn't…right. Shorter or something. And he was wearing that sweater, the one he'd worn to Sha're's funeral before changing into his Abydonian robes…in all the months since that time he had never worn that sweater again.

"Daniel?"

The man before him shook his head gently.

"Again?"

A nod.

With a sigh of resignation, Jack nodded acceptance. "Why the hell not? You'll have to do it from here though, I'm stuck."

A quiet laugh and the not-Daniel manifestation ghost thingy in front of him reached down to touch Jack's head in a rush of warmth.

Jack wasn't as dumb as he liked people to think, he'd seen those movies a hundred times. Wherever the not-Daniel was taking him, it was going to be bad. He supposed his mind had conjured up the most sympathetic and comforting presence he knew to help him through it…and hell, if he was going nuts after all then at least he was traveling in good company.

"It's a wonderful life, my ass…."

~*~

It was dark. Again. Jack wondered what it was about these things that said it always had to be dark. Couldn't they do a daylight visitation just once?

The place wasn't familiar to him, at least not the parts he could see. There were woods, a river flowing just through the trees glittering in the moonlight. A nice spot all things considered, but no where he had ever been.

"Where are we, Daniel?"

All he received in response was a shrug. Long acquaintance…and even if the vision in front of him wasn't precisely the Daniel he worked with every day he was still essentially Daniel…told him that Daniel knew, but wasn't going to say a damn thing until he was good and ready. They moved forward together, walking quietly down the footpath Jack could barely make out in the darkness. As always when he couldn't do it for himself, Jack counted on Daniel to get him where he needed to go.

They broke through the trees into a clearing to see a building nestled nearly invisible beside the water. It looked…institutional. Daniel walked on and Jack followed but a feeling of dread was quickly taking hold. Whatever they were going to see, Jack was certain he wasn't going to like it.

They passed through the walls silently, moving through quiet corridors only sparsely decorated with small cheesy Christmas trees. It looked like a hospital or prison or something….numbered doors lined the halls with small nametags to mark the occupants. Stopping at door number nineteen, Daniel motioned for Jack to follow. Taking a deep breath, Jack first looked at the nametag on the door…'O'Neill, Jonathan F'.

"What is this place, Daniel?"

With a sad sigh, Daniel said, "A place deemed safe to park dissidents until they die."

"So I'm…."

An apologetic nod. "Close."

Steeling his nerves, Jack indicated he was ready and they went through the door into the room beyond.

It was him…at least Jack supposed it was him. The man in the bed was old, painfully old, and scarred. Wispy white hair clung to his balding head as he struggled to breathe – and he had a visitor.

Teal'c.

A greatly changed Teal'c; he was old too…not as old as this future Jack, but old. Deep lines and scars marked the jaffa's face, and his eyes were haunted with failure. It wasn't a good look for him.

"I should not be here, O'Neill, but when they informed me you were so ill…" Teal'c paused to swallow against his emotions. "We have failed, my old friend. Anubis rules your world now; and while most of them do not realize it, your people exist only to serve the goa'uld as it was in the past. Everything we fought so long has been for naught. Perhaps if we had not lost Daniel Jackson this would not have happened."

Lost?

Jack looked at Daniel, looked hard this time. The changes were not so noticeable from the Daniel he had seen only that morning, a few more age lines, a bit more hardening of the body…the hair of course.

"So you…?"

Daniel nodded again sadly, confirming that sometime in the not too distant future he was destined to die and the fight against the goa'uld would at least partially be lost because of it. Made sense…every alternate reality they'd had the displeasure to visit had been overrun by the goa'uld and not a one of them had the home court advantage of a Daniel Jackson on their team.

But how…?

Teal'c was talking again. "I miss Daniel Jackson, I miss SG1. We could not survive long without him any more than this world could. The accident was indeed the beginning of the end. Or perhaps the beginning came when you lost faith in one another? We shall never know now."

When they'd lost faith…

The mission Jack had set in motion that morning? Maybe this wasn't 'the' time, but Jack had a very bad feeling it was a very significant part of it. Lies spawned more lies and the fact of lying, and doing so convincingly, would be enough to crack more than a few foundations. Whatever the future was to bring, those cracks apparently were enough to bring down the team as well as the planet.

Jack knew, like he'd always known, just how important Daniel was to the Stargate program. Even in the first days of SG1, even at his most irritated with Daniel's 'there has to be another way' appeals, Jack had known that a venture of the galactic scope of the Stargate needed heads and hearts like Daniel's. He'd meant every word he said at Daniel's memorial service after they'd thought him lost on Oannes; they were painfully true then and even more true now. Earth needed Daniel, SG1 needed him…and hell, Jack needed him too. He needed someone who saw beyond the military dictates and into his heart, someone to keep him human and focused on the bigger picture beyond.. Yeah, he needed Daniel and he knew it, had known it almost from the first moment on Abydos when Daniel looked into his eyes and saw more than just the desperate clinging to orders of man who welcomed his own death.

"Major Carter continues her efforts with the resistance but not enough of us remain to be effective. I fear it is only a matter of time until the first world is no more."

As the man on the bed gasped what Jack thought must surely be his last breath, they were gone.

"Daniel?'

~*~

Once again it was dark and Jack was alone. No ghosts, no Daniel…alone in his own bedroom where it had all begun.

Phantom pain rippled over him, bits of loss and memory he'd experienced through the night. He hoped it was over, hoped the assault on his senses and his soul were finally over. He knew now that something had to be done to change what he had been forced into. Their allies didn't need to know, even Hammond didn't need to know…but his team did. Somehow he would find a way to let them know they were justified in their faith in him and that his own faith in them was as strong as ever.

There had to be a way….

Where the hell were those ghosts when you really needed them?

~*~

Jack had finally slept a little, but was no closer to a solution to his problem when he woke than he had been when his night time roaming had finally ended. At first when he woke he wondered if maybe he'd dreamed it all, if maybe he should just stick to the plan and hope for the best. A nearly empty bottle of bourbon, a stack of CD cases on his floor, and the jumble of chessmen on his coffee table convinced him otherwise.

He was still drinking coffee and straining his weary mind for a solution when the doorbell rang.

Oh shit….

He knew it wasn't an idle visitor, knew it had to be one or more of his team come to see if the cold light of Christmas morning had displaced the bastard of the day before.

Damn, damn, damn….He wasn't ready..

Knowing he had no choice, Jack went to the door and opened it to find Daniel standing on his doorstep, looking as if his night had been every bit as sleepless as Jack's.

"Hi…" Daniel seemed hesitant, unsure of himself now that he was here.

Not knowing yet what else to do or say, Jack only asked. "What do you want?"

"I'm not, ah, I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. I'm here to talk, I guess."

Oh, God, Daniel, I wish we could talk. There was no where in the house free of listening devices, he'd checked himself only this morning.

Daniel searched Jack's face, then looked away, eyes coming to rest on Jack's coffee mug. "You got another one of those?"

Jack nodded and Daniel asked for a cup. With a sigh of gratitude for the reprieve, Jack headed for the kitchen. As he went through the motions of preparing the coffee just the way Daniel liked it he tried to think of a non-verbal way to get his message across to Daniel. They were good at this, and the O'Neill-Jackson act – as Carter had once dubbed it - had never been as vital as it was right now.

"So... how you feeling about all this?" Daniel called. Jack could see the top of the other man's head over the counter between the dining room and the living room below. He knew Daniel was taking in the general chaos of the normally spotless room as well as the liquor bottle still on the coffee table…indicators that something was seriously wrong; Jack only drank hard alcohol when he was angry with himself, not with the world…it was a personal quirk Daniel was more than a little familiar with. Number one good thing, Daniel already knew something was off, and that would show him just how far.

Heading back to the living room with Daniel's mug in hand, Jack tried to make his voice sound casual but willed Daniel to take a good look at him. "Stop your worrying, I'm fine."

Daniel did look then, and Jack hoped his tone had sounded normal to anyone else who might be listening. After a long moment during which Daniel's eyebrows grew closer together by the second, the other man finally nodded as if Jack had asked him something out loud.

"Really? That's, uh, that's funny because I didn't... I didn't figure you for the early retirement type anymore. There's another reason you're angry, isn't there?"

Jack fed him the prepared story about the offworld training base and Daniel sat there looking as if he didn't believe a word of the 'right things' they were saying.

"Give me a break, Daniel. Their denial of the program was just another indication that they're not serious about attaining our goals." Jack knew his voice was sufficiently disgusted, but he willed Daniel to just keep watching his eyes.

"Which you think is attaining weapons and technology?"

"Protecting ourselves."

"But isn't our mission also about establishing and maintaining diplomatic relations with other cultures?"

"What's the point if we don't gain anything to help our other interests?"

"Well, there's a lot we could learn from people like the Tollans that has nothing to do with technology and weapons."

"Stuff that interests people like you, Daniel, not people like me. I want to see tangible gains from our efforts and if people like the Tollans don't want to share, we should just take."

"You really believe that?" Daniel's eyes said he knew Jack didn't believe it.

"Being sweet and nice isn't going to stop three or four Goa'uld mother ships if they decide to come back again. I'd rather be a thief and alive than honest and dead. It's a cliché, but there it is." The last twenty four hours of my life have been one huge cliché, Daniel…and you know how much I hate living a cliché.

"If you really believe that, I guess, ah, I guess I never really knew you at all." Daniel winced at the words.

"Come on. You're a bright guy. You had to sense some of this... ?" A long pause then Jack went in for the figurative kill. "Then no, I guess you couldn't relate to me any more than I could to you."

They'd related in ways neither one of them could have imagined at their first meeting, they were relating right now. Daniel understood, or at least had confirmation of enough of his own suspicions to not buy Jack's words at face value.

"So this whole, uh, this whole friendship thing we've been working on the last few years….?" Daniel bit his lip against what he wanted to say, managed to keep his tone hurt and confused…and there was no doubt he was confused. Jack just hoped he'd have the chance to explain. And that the act was convincing the ones it was intended to, not the friend sitting in front of him.

"Apparently not much of a foundation there, huh?"

Jack knew his body language screamed that there was and that it had never been stronger than this moment. As Daniel sat forward to put down his coffee cup, his eyes dancing that fine line between believing with his mind or his heart, Jack took a chance and put his hand on Daniel's. The chess board was right there between them, the pieces scattered over the wooden surface. On an impulse he picked up a pawn and placed it in Daniel's hand, closing the other man's fingers over it. Daniel nodded at him in hopeful understanding, then rose and headed for the door.

"Merry Christmas, Jack." The words sounded as hurt as Jack could have hoped for the sake of the listening audience, but Daniel's gaze said he understood, said be careful, said he'd take care of the team, said he owed Daniel a huge dinner and an even bigger explanation.

It was going to be okay….

~*~

Christmas came late for SG1. The rogue teams had been captured, at least some of the ringleaders as well…it seemed a sort of poetic justice that Harry Maybourne had been among them.

True to his unspoken word, Daniel had let the others know that all was not as it had seemed on Christmas Eve and even Hammond was none the wiser that SG1 was a little better informed than they'd planned. Best of all, Jack had not broken faith with his team.

Sitting on his sofa and watching the others open the presents they'd waited to share together, Jack sighed as he sipped on the very fine hot chocolate Daniel had brought along – none of that powered imitation stuff for their personal connoisseur. Maybe his Christmas Eve experience had all been a dream, but Jack was as sure as he could be that this Christmas would have been a much sadder and lonelier time if it hadn't happened.

The future he'd glimpsed was one he was determined would never happen. Daniel would stay safe no matter what they had to do, Anubis - whichever the hell goa'uld that was - would not gain a foothold on Earth, and SG1 would fight, together as always, to make sure of it.

Daniel looked up at Jack then, his eyes reflecting a peace Jack now knew was harder won than he could ever have imagined. They'd won. Their friendship and foundations had held under one of the harshest storms they'd ever faced…and all without saying a word.

There was only one more gift Jack wanted to give Daniel this day, one more gift Daniel could give all of them.

"Tell us the story, Daniel?"

Time healed. Jack knew it, and he knew Daniel knew it.

Since that long ago first Christmas they'd spent as a team, far from home, this part of Christmas had become their tradition. Though he hadn't understood it at the time, Jack had watched the story become less of a burden and more of a comforting memory of what Jack now knew was a child that had never been given the chance they had right now…the chance to live and know that there was someone in their lives who would always believe in them.

Settling back against the sofa, Daniel smiled a sad but contented smile, as if he understood what Jack was thinking, and then he began to speak…

"And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, 'Hail, thou that art highly favored'…."

*Fin*

Author's note: A what if story using a tried and true form of redemption altered to fit the needs of the story I wanted to tell. To me the friendship between Jack and Daniel seemed to splinter somewhat after Shades…many times it was hard to remember they were friends at all. The separation grew, Daniel seemed to become more and more isolated apart from his team and in the end he was willing to leave them behind in the belief he no longer served a purpose among them. I happen to disagree with that sentiment and this is my way of 'fixing' something that I believe should never have happened at all. I'm playing with the timeline somewhat…making it a very unseasonably warm Christmas that year <g>. Just imagine the trees with no leaves, the rest will take care of itself. Have we ever seen it snow in SG1 Colorado? ;)

Special note: Thanks to Alphekka for not minding the 'bugger it' moment, or that we share the same taste in ghosts. This was one of those times when two people independently hit on similar elements in a story otherwise completely different but inevitably one finishes before the other and posts. It seems we agree on our outlooks toward season four and it you read slash, I highly recommend her story 'Christmas Present - or - What the Dickens?' at http://www.imps.demon.co.uk/stargate.htm - she's way funnier than I am...darn it. ;)

© December, 2002 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.