• SPOILERS : Meridian, Shades of Gray, Legacy, Maternal Instinct, Absolute Power, Prisoners, Crystal Skull... basically, everything in the first four seasons is Fair Game.
• SUMMARY : Meridian tag. A MERIDIAN fix-it
• PG-13 [5th] [6th] [A] [AU] [D]

In, out.

In, out.

In, out.

The white curtains billowed softly in the light breeze, reminding him of sailing ships and summer nights when you thought you'd die if you couldn't find a bit of wind somewhere. Daniel lay on his side, facing the window across the room, and watched the curtains.

In, out.

In, out.

He could almost feel himself moving with the curtains, back and forth, whispering across the floor like a dancing ghost. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the soft //shush shush// of the fabric, a gentle rhythm that sang to him like a lullabye.

In, out.

He let himself drift, thinking of white things. There had been gauzy white linen curtains in one of the apartments he had shared with his parents, curtains like these. They were floor length as well, and even on those nights when the heat had pressed down like a living thing, smothering and suffocating, the curtains had still found some way to move. No matter how hot it had gotten, all he'd had to do was concentrate on the underwater movement of the curtains and he could fall asleep.

He opened his eyes again, rocking minutely back and forth, following the curtains.

There had been other white things, recently. He could remember looking down at himself, at the small bumps under the white sheets that represented his knees, the tiny tented hillocks so far away that were his feet. He'd always liked clean white sheets. There was something about them that automatically made you feel comfortable.

He remembered looking down at the bandages on his chest, white and textured, watching with detached curiosity as a small red spot grew in size and spread across his ribcage, remembered realizing through a haze of drugs that this was //his// blood smeared on the bandages, //his// blood and not red dye or ketchup like one of his foster fathers had always told him they used in the movies. He could remember the nurse coming by, noticing the blood and quickly changing the bandage, her face carefully shuttered to hide her revulsion at what was concealed underneath.

He could remember the pain, the pain that the drugs finally couldn't blunt, the feeling as his stomach and intestines turned to mush and his skin cracked and dissolved until he was nothing but a person-shaped bag of blood and blazing nerve endings, all neatly covered over by clean white bandages. He could remember looking out from two holes in a mask of white cotton, the vague stirring of panic when he realized he could no longer move on his own. He wasn't even a person any more, not really, because people have organs and skin that isn't made of bandages.

He shuddered, and resolutely turned his mind away from those morbid thoughts, curling up a bit tighter on the bed, willing himself to think of other things.

Daisies. Daisies were white. There was nothing too sinister about daisies.

Oma. Oma Desala and Shifu were white, some of the time anyway, and there was nothing wrong with them. Okay, so Oma could flatten an entire regiment of Jaffa with lightning and Shifu could send dreams that rocked all your conceptions of yourself and your worth to the core, but he'd meant well, really...

He sighed in resignation. There was nothing for it; he was going to have to get up now. His brain had kicked into gear again, and there was no way he was going to be able to turn it off. Once it got started on thinking there was no stopping it. He remembered Jack's incredulity on Hadante, when Daniel had thought of a gate address after being strangled. It gave him such a smug feeling of satisfaction, sometimes, to shock Jack that way.

He shook his head to clear it and sat up, dangling his legs over the edge of his bed. It was no good thinking of Jack right now, or Sam or Teal'c or Janet or Cassie or anyone else he'd left behind. They belonged to a different part of his life. When he'd woken up the first morning and asked Oma if he could ever go back and see them again, she had rebuked him gently, pointing out in her inevitably cryptic fashion that the Great Path did not go in circles, and with an effort, he had tried to put his friends into the section of his brain reserved for foster families and old teachers, all the people he'd loved in the past and had to say goodbye to. But SG-1, like Sha're, had refused to fade away. It was going to take a long time to dull those memories.

He levered himself to his feet and wandered over to the window, nudging his way through the ballooning curtains to lean against the wall and stare out over the garden. It looked a lot like the garden on Kheb, which he supposed made sense.

He'd been surprised, that first morning he'd woken up, to find that he wasn't intangible, wasn't light like Oma. He distinctly remembered turning into light, floating up through the infirmary ceiling away from the stricken faces of his friends and through the gate to...wherever he was now, exactly. Oma had given him an inscrutable look (not that she really had any other kind, of course), and said "When the mind is freed, the body is no longer required," which he took to mean that he still had a bit of work ahead of him before he was allowed to ascend for good.

He was kind of glad, actually, to have his body back. He liked being solid. That whole fiasco with the crystal skull and his own disappearing act had imbued him with a distinct lack of enthusiasm for being invisible and intangible.

The air in his room changed slightly and he turned, the hairs on his arms standing up with static electricity.

"Hello, Oma."

"Good morning, Daniel. Your thoughts seem heavy today."

He gave her a little half-smile. "I was thinking about the past again."

She inclined her head gravely in the direction of the door. "Come, Daniel. We will tread the paths of the garden, and you will tell me of your friends and your enemies."

He smiled gratefully at her. He was never quite sure if her curiosity regarding his past was genuine or simply an excuse for him to talk, but he appreciated it either way. He doubted there was much he could tell her about the Goa'uld, for example (she had, after all, known of the Harcesis child before they had), but talking made him feel less like a slightly foolish student and more like someone with two PhDs who had been travelling through the Gate for six years. If there was one thing he'd missed these past few years, he reflected as they walked by the water lily pool, it was an interested audience.

****

Colonel Jack O'Neill sat down at the commissary table and regarded his mashed potatoes with a considerable lack of enthusiasm. He wasn't particularly hungry, but as a good CO was trying to set an example for Carter and Teal'c. It was true what Joni Mitchell used to warble about parking lots and paradise, he thought. You don't know what you've got until it's gone.

A tray plonked itself down in front of him and he looked up. "Hey, Carter."

"Hi." She slumped down into her seat and poked her Jell-O dubiously. "They messed it up. I didn't think it was even possible to mess up Jell-O. I mean, who doesn't know how to make Jell-O? You just follow the instructions on the box. All you have to do is add water and let it sit. It's not that hard. They didn't even get the color right. It's supposed to be blue. This isn't blue, it's..."

"Blue?"

She sighed and took a bite. "Yeah. Blue."

A third tray announced the arrival of Teal'c. "O'Neill. Major Carter."

"Do you think this Jell-O looks funny, Teal'c?"

Teal'c fixed her with one of his patented inscrutable stares. "It is Jell-O."

"Good point."

They continued eating in silence, and Jack couldn't help but wish for the incomprehensible chatter that used to be the trademark of SG-1 team lunches.

"I feel like right after we got back from Nem's planet," he said abruptly. Carter dropped her fork.

"Because Daniel Jackson is not dead."

Jack shifted uncomfortably and wished he'd never said anything. They'd been doing such a good job not talking about it so far. "Yeah."

"He's in a better place for him," Carter said, but she wouldn't look up from the systematic liquefying of her blue-not-blue Jell-O.

"Yeah," Jack said again, and there was silence at the table.

The truth was, he felt a little abandoned. Okay, so Jacob wouldn't have been able to heal Daniel completely, and okay the kid had pretty much been at loose ends since Sha're died and Shifu proved without a doubt that he could take care of himself, but that was no excuse to accept an offer from Tinkerbell On Crack and take the wormhole express to who-knows-where without so much as a by-your-leave or a "Toodles!" to your teammates. How many times had he told Daniel not to go wandering off?

Jack smacked his spoon down into his mashed potatoes with a little more force than was necessary. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being a little unfair to his erstwhile teammate. It wasn't like he'd really said good bye either, after all. Just some crack about Daniel being a pain in the butt. Good job, Jack.

Another smack of the spoon splattered mashed potatoes across his tray and earned him a raised eyebrow from Teal'c, who was managing to eat even the crap the commissary called food with dignity. He gave Teal'c an embarrassed half-smile, and glanced over at the shelves of pie on the other side of the commissary, considering skipping lunch altogether and going straight for dessert. Some days that was the best way to go. What was it that Daniel had told him once? "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first"?

"Oh, for cryin' out loud..." he muttered as he spotted Jonas Quinn making his was uncertainly through the commissary line.

"What, sir?"

"That Quinn kid. You just //know// he's going to come sit with us."

Carter cracked a smile and gave him that look she only gave him when she thought he was acting like he was still in junior high. Jack ignored it loftily.

"We //are// the only people that Jonas Quinn knows, O'Neill," there was a hint of rebuke in Teal'c's voice.

"I know, it's just..."

"We're not quite ready to accept his part in Daniel's..." her voice trailed off.

"Transition to Tinkerbell?" That got him another smile. "It's not even that. It's just...can you remember how long it took to get Daniel to think like a soldier? We're going to be starting all over again with another clueless civilian. If Daniel made me go gray, this guy's going to give me a heart attack. //And// ulcers."

Teal'c shifted next to him, a movement reminiscent of the way tectonic plates change position. "Is he to be our new member, O'Neill?"

"I'm not sure yet. It makes sense, I mean, we need a cultural expert and he does that, and it's easier to take someone from offworld than to recruit a guy from Earth and expect him to keep quiet. Daniel was sort of a unique case, there. So it sort of makes sense. Logically speaking. Yeah."

Carter sighed and drained her Jell-O with a surprisingly childlike slurp. "Well, he seems like a nice enough guy, I suppose. And he //did// come through for us, in the end."

Silence fell at the table again, broken by the predicted arrival of Jonas, who stood uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot before finally asking "Er, can I sit down?"

"For crying out loud, Quinn, it's a free commissary."

Jonas blinked at him, "Oh," and sat down. The silence grew brittle and uncomfortable as everyone tried to pretend there was no silence whatsoever.

"I'm sorry."

They all jumped. "For what reason do you apologize?" Teal'c rumbled, recovering first.

"I'm sorry for the circumstances that led to my arrival. I only knew Doctor Jackson briefly, but he was a fine man. I wish I had known him better."

"He's not dead," Jack said sharply.

"No! No, of course not. I didn't mean to imply that." Jonas poked at his food, then proved he had at least some survival instinct by putting down his fork. "I just thought I should say...I don't want to replace Doctor Jackson. From what I have learned of him, that would be impossible. But I would like to help you out, however I can. This place...well, it's as much of a home as I can lay claim to now, and I'm serious about helping to defend it."

Despite himself, Jack felt a small thawing in his feelings towards Jonas. "We know. It's just going to take us a little while, okay? No hard feelings."

Jonas smiled, relieved. "No hard feelings." He popped a large forkfull of mystery meat into his mouth and blanched, grabbing for his glass.

Jack sighed.

****

//"Being sweet and nice isn't going to stop three or four Goa'uld motherships if they decide to come back again. I'd rather be a thief and alive than honest and dead. It's a clich?, but there it is."//

Pause.

//"If you really believe that, I guess, uh, I guess I never really knew you at all."

"Come on. You're a bright guy. You //had// to sense some of this."//

Pause.

//"Then no. I guess you couldn't relate to me any more than I could to you."

"So this whole, uh, this whole friendship thing we've been working on for the past few years?"

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

Daniel's eyes snapped open and he was out of bed before he knew it, standing shivering in the center of his room, arms tight around his chest in the habitual pose of self-protection he hadn't let himself adopt the first time he had heard those awful words come from Jack's mouth.

The first time.

Well, he supposed it had only been a matter of time before one of his recurring nightmares caught up with him.

He walked over to the window, between the billowing curtains, and stood, soothed by the gentle touches of fabric against bare skin. He and Jack had laid that awful conversation to rest a long time ago, but it still came back to haunt him sometimes. He leaned his head against the window's edge and stared out at the stars, trying to calm his fluttering heart.

The air changed. "Daniel? Is something wrong?"

He turned and offered her a half-smile. "Nightmare. Sorry if I woke you." Do you sleep? Or do you just...blink off?

Her face crinkled in sympathy and she gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, floating somewhere between corporeal and light form. "Dreams sometimes teach."

He gave her a blank look. "Right."

She gave his arm another squeeze and let go, elaborating. "You cannot go on a journey if you never leave your front step. You must release your burdens."

"Ah. Cut the ties to my past," Daniel said softly, staring out at the stars. There were clouds gathering to his left. He wondered if it would rain. "Move on. Get over it. Keep on trucking. Stiff upper lip."

He could hear the smile in her voice. "Sleep, Daniel."

A slight rush of air announced her departure. Daniel reached out and trailed his fingers lightly across the curtains, letting the motion soothe him, and wished he had something to keep his mind off his past. Pity he had left all his translation work at home. That was a thought, though. Maybe Oma's people had some sort of archive or library he could poke around in. Humor the Earthling and all that. Too bad they didn't believe in coffee.

"You hear that, Jack?" he murmured to the stars. "Even when I'm incorporeal I can't stop working. Is it any wonder I never left the mountain?" The idea brought a smile to his face.

//For crying out loud, Daniel!// A ghostly mental Jack-voice complained. //Do you live in your office?//

Daniel's smile faded.

"Release my burdens. Right."

****

Clutching a large pile of files to her chest, Sam made her way determinedly down the hall to Daniel's office, reminding herself with each step that when she got there, she wasn't going to see Daniel. Daniel would not be there. Daniel was gone. Daniel didn't live there any more. Jonas was there. Going to see Jonas. Yep, just heading to Jonas's office.

She pushed the door open and for a split second, despite her preparations, her heart leapt as she caught sight of the figure perched on a stool at the large worktable.

He turned to smile at her. "Major Carter, hello."

Reality crashed in. She forced a smile and recited the first twenty elements in the periodic table to bring her brain back in line. "Hi, Jonas."

His eyes flicked down at the files in her arms and she recalled abruptly what her mission was. "Oh! Right. Um, I just thought I'd bring you some of the files from our missions, so you could, you know, get a feel for what we're doing." Her voice trailed off as she stood awkwardly shifting from foot to foot, the files digging uncomfortably into her fingers. What was she doing, making nice to Daniel's replacement? She should be resentful, she should be angry, she should be pulling the same sort of things she'd pulled the first time her father had dared bring a lady friend home after her mother's death.

//Lithium, beryllium, carbon, boron.//

Jonas beamed at her, cutting that train of thought short with an almost audible screech. Right, Sam. And the reason you aren't pulling that kind of crap is because you're an adult now and the circumstances are completely different. And besides, it hadn't worked anyway.

She dumped the files on the only clean surface she could find, the desk chair. It looked like Jonas agreed with Daniel's filing theories, at least.

Jonas looked mildly uncertain. "There...certainly are a lot of them, aren't there?"

Sam felt a marginally malicious smile growing on her face and let it. Colonel O'Neill had called it the Evil Twin Smile once, the one both she and Daniel got when they were planning something guaranteed to give him a headache. According to the Colonel, the only expression it was worse to see both of them sporting was the Innocent Face. That was when he knew he was really in trouble.

"Jonas, this is just the first year."

His jaw dropped. "Oh," he said faintly. Sam took pity.

"It's not as bad as it looks, honest. A lot of this stuff is just recommendations for future missions, equipment lists, stuff like that. You'll probably want to stick to the summaries, give you an idea of how we operate, that kind of thing. It shouldn't take you too long, and if you have any questions, just ask one of us."

He gave her a warm smile. "Thank you, Major Carter. Well, I guess I'd better get started then, shouldn't I?"

Her retreat towards the door was halted by his next question. "Major Carter, I couldn't help but notice that a large number of the books on Doctor Jackson's shelves appear to be diaries of some sort."

She turned back, a million memories of Daniel scribbling in his journals running through her mind. "Yeah, Daniel kept a journal of each planet we visited, pretty much."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Do you suppose...do you think it would bother anyone if I took a look? Just to clear up a few details, here and there. I mean no disrespect," he added hastily at the look on her face.

Resentment slammed through her. Who was this man to think he could just waltz in and take Daniel's place? Read his journals? Like hell!

//Vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron.//

She pushed aside her feelings with an effort and a mentally growled //grow UP, Sam!//. "No. No, I'm sure that's okay. I'll just...I'll just go now." She turned away quickly, blinking hard.

"Major Carter?"

"Yes?" She forced another smile. Soldiers don't cry, Sam. Come on, be professional.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I'm not trying to take his place. I don't want to be his replacement. I hope someday I'll be able to make myself useful on my own merits, but until then, any help I can get, well...I just thought...if archaeologists on Earth proceed in the same manner as archaeologists on Colona, there will be a lot more I can learn from Doctor Jackson's journals than I can from official mission reports."

Sam gave him a rueful look. "No, you're right. Go ahead and read. You might find talking to Teal'c helpful, too - he was in your place a few years ago, and he'll be able to give you some insights into the way we do things that we wouldn't think to give."

"That's an excellent idea, Major Carter. Thank you."

"Oh, and Jonas?"

"Yes?"

"You can call me Sam, if it makes you more comfortable. Daniel... lots of people call me Sam."

His smile was grateful. "Thank you...Sam."

Sam turned and wandered back down to her lab, trying not to mind that Daniel's office didn't smell like coffee any more.

//Osmium, iridium, platinum, gold...//

****

After a bit of searching, Daniel finally found Oma in one of the gardens. "Oma, I wondered if I might ask you a favor."

She smiled at him, swirling gently. "Certainly, Daniel. If it is within my power."

"Right. Well, I was wondering, um, you see, that thing about releasing my burdens? Well, it isn't, uh, isn't really working very well. So far. I mean - I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. But the thing is, when I was on Earth - and I //know// that was in the past, and I'm supposed to be releasing that burden, but bear with me - when I was on Earth, and my mind was troubled, it helped to be able to do some work. To take my mind off of it, you know?"

She gave him a perplexed look. "You wish to travel through the Stargate?"

"No! No, not that work. I did other work too, see, I used to be an archaeologist and a linguist and - well, it's not really important, I mean, I'm releasing that, but the work I used to do, I would, uh, read things. Translate them. You know, accounts of other civilizations? It used to give me an insight into the cultures we were - well, anyway, I was wondering, do you have a library?"

She blinked. Daniel shifted uncomfortably.

"You wish something to read?"

"Yes! You know, just something to keep my mind occupied. It always helped in the past. Which I'm leaving behind. Really. No past."

Her eyes crinkled with amusement but she answered him gravely. "I see no problem with reading. We do, indeed, have an archive. I believe that is what you seek?"

Daniel grinned, immensely relieved. "Great! An archive would be wonderful."

"I do not believe you are familiar with our style of writing."

Daniel's smile grew. "Even better."

"Follow me."

****

"...Okay, so the gun you're going to be carrying is pretty straightforward. Carter and I, we carry P90s, which are fully automatic machine-guns capable of firing 900 rounds per minute at a rate of 2,346 feet per minute, and Teal'c carries a staff weapon which is an entirely different story, but I don't think you're quite up to that yet, so we're going to start you off with a Beretta nine millimeter handgun. It's pretty simple: also fully automatic, standard sights, fifteen round stagger magazine, combat trigger guard, and it'll fire about..." Jack's voice trailed off as his brain, going on automatic until now, registered the expression on Jonas's face as being somewhere between incredulous and deer-in-the-headlights. Irritation swelled.

"Okay, I'll make this a little simpler. This is a 'gun'. These are 'bul-lets'. Fifteen of them fit in a 'mag-a-zine', which means you can shoot somebody fifteen times before resorting to pistol whipping. Ah! Don't ask!" He held up a warning finger, recognizing the look on Jonas's face as the one Teal'c always got when he was about to ask for clarification. "This little lever is called a 'safety'. When the lever points along the barrel, that means the gun will fire. When it's angled down, like this, it means the gun will //not// fire. With me so far?"

Jonas nodded uncertainly. Jack rubbed his temple with one hand, asking himself again why he hadn't just delegated this job to the weaponsmaster... //Because you felt sorry for him, you dope. It's the same reason you taught Teal'c and Daniel personally too. Cut the kid some frigging slack, okay?//

"All right. To shoot, you point the gun away from yourself and pull the trigger, which is this piece of metal here." Jack suited action to words and a neat hole appeared near the center of the target at the end of the firing range. Jonas jumped. "You see this little metal point at the end of the barrel? That's the front part of your sight. When you're aiming the gun, you line that point up in the notch here and center both on the target. Do you feel ready to try taking a shot?" He clicked on the safety and dropped the gun in Jonas's hand. "Now, whenever someone hands you a gun, you want to check two things. First: see if the gun is loaded, which means checking the clip, like so, and also (now this is important) see if there's a round chambered...like this. And then, if it //is// loaded, put the safety on. With me?"

Jonas gave him a completely unconvincing nod.

Jack sighed. "Look, I know this is a lot to take in, but it's something you really need to know before you go off world with us. Don't worry, we'll make sure you get lots of practice. I don't know if you'll ever get to be comfortable around guns - Daniel worked with them for maybe six years and I don't think he ever got comfortable - but you'll at least know how to use one safely, which is really all we're asking. If you were in the military it would be different, but since you're still a civilian, we'll cut you some slack. Okay?"

Jonas's face cleared somewhat and he nodded more assertively this time. He gripped the gun and trained it on the target, managing a fairly good approximation of Jack's own stance, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Jonas gave Jack a puzzled look. Fighting to restrain a smile, Jack said gravely, "Of course, one of the things to remember is whether or not the safety is still on..."

"Oh, right," Jonas said sheepishly, and turned back to the target. He lined up the shot and squeezed the trigger. The sharp report of the gun made him yelp with surprise and drop the firearm with a clatter on the floor.

Jack closed his eyes and counted to ten. "And //never// drop your weapon."

Jonas scrambled to pick up the gun, only to have it snatched from him by a wide-eyed Jack. Bewildered, Jonas stared at him in astonishment.

"And never, EVER point your gun at someone you don't plan to shoot!" Jack could feel the anger rising in him and knew he'd better get away for a minute unless the cleaning crew wanted to be scraping Jonas off the walls. "Just...stand //right there// and //don't touch anything!// I'll be back in a minute," he growled, and stalked out into the hallway.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Come on, Jack. He isn't even from this planet. It's not his fault. Breathe in, breathe out. Christ, Daniel hadn't ever been this clueless, had he?

No, Daniel had never been this clueless. From the moment Brown dropped that pistol into Daniel's hand on the first mission to Abydos - as far as Jack knew, the first time Daniel had ever held a gun - Daniel had been pretty good about weapons. He'd never be Annie Oakley or anything, but he'd been a fair shot. Hell, Daniel had even been allowed the use of an M16 as early on as the Touched mission, not that he'd made a habit of it...

And all this was completely pointless, because that wasn't Daniel in there he was trying to teach. It was an uprooted academic from another planet who didn't know what words like 'magazine' and 'millimeter' meant, and who was going to kill someone by accident if he wasn't taught properly.

Resolved, Jack marched back into the firing range with all the grim determination of a man hell-bent on making it in front of a firing squad without a blindfold or a last smoke. //Oooh, bad analogy, Jack...//

Jonas was standing right where Jack had left him, looking so comically intent on not moving it almost made Jack smile.

"Okay, Jonas, let's try this again. Now you know that the gun makes a lot of noise when it's fired, so be ready for that this time. All set?"

His jaw squared, Jonas picked up the gun, aimed, and shot. A large chunk of cement wall several feet away from the target disintegrated.

Jack closed his eyes and debated whether or not beating his head against the wall would solve anything in the long run.

****

Humming contentedly to himself, Daniel unrolled another scroll and laid it across his increasingly cluttered worktable. The writing style was, as promised, completely unfamiliar, but with a little work he was pretty sure he could figure it out.

The contents of this latest scroll brought him up short. It wasn't written in the style of Oma's people, it was in what looked like a derivation of Arabic with a healthy smattering of Latin and Greek thrown in. Odd. Not a combination he came across usually.

But, to a kid who had grown up speaking more Arabic than English, easy enough to decipher. It seemed to be an account of a battle of some sort...no, not even a battle, an invasion. The enemy was apparently a race of beings who could cast illusions so realistic there was no piercing them, and who relied on some small empathic ability which let them judge their enemies responses and adjust accordingly. Daniel could almost feel the writer's horror as he described monsters with such increasingly terrifying forms that his planet's defenders had simply thrown down their weapons and cowered. This was what he loved about archaeology, this connection with someone long dead; a shared feeling, being able to imagine exactly what someone from so long ago had experienced, the terror as the illusion-monsters approached, knowing there was nothing he could do except write down his experiences and leave them as a warning...

Daniel shivered sympathetically, glad that SG-1 had never come up against such creatures. They'd only encountered the Goa'uld...and the Reetou...and whatever that race of beings that had taken over the SGC last year had called themselves... and...okay, so they'd run into plenty of nasty creatures over the years. He scanned the rest of the account to see if the writer had remarked on any weakness the race had, but came across nothing. As far as the author was concerned, they were invincible.

Peachy, as Jack would say. He supposed that the only way to tell if something was an illusion would be to watch carefully for any discrepancies between what you were seeing and what you knew to be true. Although, if these beings had empathic ability as the account suggested, they would be able to sense your suspicion and adjust, so that by the time you realized you were dealing with an illusion, it would be too late. What was it that Oma had said the first time they met? "If you immediately know the candle light is fire, the meal was cooked a long time ago." He'd never understood it before, but maybe this was what she had been referring to.

Daniel cast a speculative eye over the other scrolls. If he could find others written in this strange mix of familiar languages, he might be able to glean a good deal of information about possible allies and enemies. If he could then pass that information on to the SGC...

But no, Oma had already told him he couldn't go back. An awful feeling began to uncurl in Daniel's gut. He couldn't actually tell anyone about this. All this knowledge...if he found some concrete threat to Earth, he wouldn't be able to pass it along. He would have to sit here, useless, stewing in the knowledge that SG-1 might be trying to defeat these very same enemies. And he would never know.

For the first time since his near-ascension, Daniel realized how alone he was.

The air changed next to him. "Daniel?" Oma's voice called anxiously. "Are you all right?"

Daniel forced a smile. "Yeah, fine."

Her eyes came to rest on the impetus behind Daniel's current panic attack, and for a moment something dark flickered behind her eyes, and made Daniel wonder if she knew firsthand about the people mentioned in the scroll.

"I just...I was just reading, and it occurred to me - if SG-1 gets captured, or killed, I'll never know. I won't know if they're okay and I won't be able to help them. They could be in trouble //right now// and I wouldn't know it." Daniel's took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I know I'm supposed to be leaving all that behind, but they're my family, or as close as I've got to one. It worries me."

Oma's expression seemed to ease a bit. "You mustn't worry, Daniel. I'll keep an eye on them for you. They're fine. You must release your burdens. Come, walk with me in the garden. Have you had much success with your translating?"

Daniel relaxed fractionally. "No. You were right. Most of it is stuff I've never encountered before, although it reminds me a little of a variation of Mandarin Chinese we came across on P4R949, and I think if I use that as a base..." He lost himself in the intricate puzzlework of a new language as they strolled through the garden, Oma nodding her head gently whenever he made a particularly brilliant revelation, regarding him the whole while with a sort of indulgent amusement that reminded him strongly of a lioness watching her cub's infant show of ferocity.

When he returned the next day to the library, the Arabic scroll had vanished.

****

Teal'c's muscles rippled as he struck out, his fist connecting solidly with the punching bag. The bag swung briskly back and Teal'c waited for it to complete its arc, then struck again with the other fist. Some sixth sense, honed over a lifetime of training, warned him that someone approached. Never slowing his mock fight, Teal'c analyzed the approach of the other person.

The stranger moved quietly, which ruled out O'Neill and Major Carter. O'Neill had learned the hard way never to sneak up on Teal'c, and incidentally that Jaffa do not appreciate practical jokes. Major Carter was clever enough to have figured that out before O'Neill's regrettable accident, and took care to step heavily as she approached. Most of the rest of the SGC were wary enough of the big man to walk around him in a wide arc, especially when he was practicing, as he was now.

So it was someone unused to the SGC and its members, which left...

"Jonas Quinn."

The person behind him stopped abruptly, and Teal'c could almost taste the man's surprise.

"How did you know it was me?"

Teal'c caught the rebounding bag and turned, arching one expressive eyebrow. "Not many at the SGC are unwise enough to come up behind me quietly."

Jonas Quinn blinked. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry."

Teal'c's expression softened into his version of a smile. "It is of no matter, but perhaps something to keep in mind in the future. What brings you here?"

"I came to talk to you, actually."

Teal'c waited.

Jonas shifted uncomfortably, evidently made uneasy by the Jaffa's taciturnity. "Maj - uh, //Sam// mentioned that it might be a good idea for me to talk to you. She said you'd be able to give me insights on...on the people here that she and Colonel O'Neill wouldn't think to give."

"On the Tau'ri." Teal'c inclined his head and motioned the scholar to one of the benches lining the gym. "Major Carter's suggestions are often wise. What do you wish to know?"

Jonas Quinn sat on the edge of the bench as if preparing to retreat rapidly should Teal'c show any signs of aggression. "I don't really even know where to start, I mean, there's so much to learn. I guess...what is your take on the people here? What are they like? I can't seem to get a handle on any of them."

"The people in this facility come from a background that is, I think, very different from your own. You are a scholar, are you not? And have little experience with the military?"

"Well, I have experience with the military of //my// planet, but...yes, I suppose you're right."

"They are people of great honor and loyalty, but it would perhaps be most informative for you to hear of O'Neill and Major Carter, would it not?" He arched an eyebrow as he spoke.

Jonas Quinn colored slightly, confirming Teal'c's suspicions as to his real motives in coming. "Well, yes. I feel bad asking them anything personal, because I don't want to offend. Do you mind?"

"I do not." The Jaffa rested his head against the wall, choosing his words with care. "O'Neill and Major Carter are both people of great strength, courage, integrity, and, though O'Neill obscures the fact, intelligence. They are not without faults, however; Major Carter will occasionally become so involved in a problem's scientific manifestation she may forget its more human aspects, and O'Neill can have something of a... 'one-track' mind when it come to matters of a military nature. Daniel Jackson was of great help in tempering these faults, often to his own detriment...although," he conceded with what came as close to a smirk as he ever got, "he was never able to discourage O'Neill's sometimes pathological overprotective streak."

Jonas Quinn grinned.

"They are...unlike anyone else I have ever met, certainly." He turned to face Jonas Quinn fully, and the scholar drew back slightly at the big man's expression. "I took an oath when I first joined the Tau'ri. I swore to protect them, with my life if necessary. Do not bring harm to them."

Jonas Quinn gazed back steadily. "I won't hurt them. I promise."

Teal'c leaned back, satisfied. "Indeed."

****

Daniel pulled his pillow over his head and admitted he was frustrated.

Frustrated, angry, confused...and he had the start of something that might be dread growing in the pit of his stomach.

His attempts to locate the tantalizing Arabic scroll had been met with a polite unhelpfulness apparently common to libraries across the galaxy. At first he had been told that there was no scroll like the one he described, and he therefore must have been imagining it. This was all done in a ruthlessly pleasant and tenderly concerned manner that suggested kindly to him he was mentally unstable or, even worse, //wasting their time//. The veteran of library battles by the thousands, he had finally managed to uncover the fact that if this particular scroll had existed then it must have been misshelved because there was no possible way it could have shown up on his table otherwise, and was he happy now?

This, unfortunately, still didn't tell him where the recalcitrant scroll had gone, and the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach was telling him that it was time he woke up and smelled the celestial coffee, because his subconscious was trying to tell him something. It was the same feeling he'd gotten before realizing the pyramids were older than anyone wanted to admit, and again when it became apparent that Ra hadn't been the last of his race after all, and then when he'd deciphered exactly what Hathor meant when she said "We are the mother of all pharaohs."...in short, it never meant anything good. Important, maybe, but rarely something destined to bring him long life and prosperity.

Merde.

//All right, time to think, Daniel.// What was it about the scroll?

It told the history of a race, a race with incredible powers which they didn't exactly appear to use for philanthropy. So, assuming a worst-case scenario, the logical assumption was that the scroll had been taken to prevent him from learning about this nameless race. The only problem with //that// scenario, of course, was that he'd already deciphered it.

//Okay, think carefully. Does anyone actually know you've translated the scroll?//

Well, the answer to that had to be 'no'. He'd talked to Oma about the other scrolls, but as far as he could remember, he'd given no indication that he'd already read the Arabic one. And, since it had been a relatively easy language, he hadn't even taken his usual copious notes. So as far as anyone knew, he hadn't read it.

All right. So the scroll had been taken to deny him knowledge of the illusion-masters. Could it have been because Oma didn't want him to worry?

No, that didn't make sense. He was already worried, and she knew it. Taking the scroll would have accomplished nothing, if she thought he couldn't read the damn thing. She'd sensed his panic and come running, but his panic had never been explicitly linked to the scroll.

Wait...sensed his panic? Weren't the illusion-masters supposed to be empaths?

Yes, but he'd bet his bottom dollar empathy wasn't entirely uncommon in the galaxy. And Oma's people, pacifistic and non-interventionist as they were, would be prime candidates for empathy.

//Don't discount anything out of hand, Daniel. Loose ends will just lead to doubts later on.//

All right. So, going by the worst-case scenario assumption again, Oma was either one of the illusion-masters or was an illusion-master pretending to be Oma. What was it he'd said the other day? That the only way to tell if something was an illusion would be to watch carefully for any discrepancies between what you were seeing and what you knew to be true, but that the illusion-masters had empathic ability and would sense your suspicion and adjust anyway, so by the time you realized you were dealing with an illusion, it would be too late.

Well, removing the scroll would certainly be considered an adjustment, so the next thing would be to look for discrepancies. Okay...the first time he'd met Oma, her priest had tried to teach him (using //far// too many deliberately cryptic phrases, if you asked Jack) that Oma could take care of Shifu better than he could, then he'd confronted Oma, realized what was going on, and let her take the baby.

And, now that he thought about it, Oma had never said a word. Nor had she ever assumed a corporeal or even human form. That was certainly a discrepancy. And it would explain some of the things that had been nagging at the back of his mind, like why he hadn't ascended all the way, and why now that he thought about it, no one had tried to teach him anything more important than the best way to the bathroom.

So far at least, his conspiracy theory was making more sense than a partial ascendance.

But how would an alien illusion-master know to use Oma's form?

Well, they were empaths, weren't they? Maybe they'd set it up to, oh, rely on his expectations or something. He expected to see Oma, then that was who he saw. But that begged the question - when had the deception begun? Right after his ascension? If that was the case, then how had they gotten rid of the real Oma?

Frustrated, Daniel pounded his pillow with one hand and scowled. Maybe there was some way he could test his theory. If the illusion relied, as he hypothesized, on expectations, there had to be a way. All he needed was something constant...

His eyes fell on the curtains. Every morning when he woke up, and every evening when he went to bed, the curtains blew gently in the wind.

Bingo.

He settled himself comfortably on the bed and closed his eyes. He thought, //I do not expect the curtains to be blowing. I expect the curtains will be completely still when I next see them.// He repeated this, fixed the image of still curtains in his mind, tried not to feel silly, and then opened his eyes.

The curtains were still.

Scheisse.

He was right.

He closed his eyes again, fighting down his rising panic. //Calm down. You can't afford to give anything away. If you //are// right - and that's still a big 'if' - Not-Oma will be able to sense it and she'll come running. Orbing. Whatever.// He concentrated on breathing, and slowly opened his eyes. The curtains still hung limply in the window. //Okay, think carefully, Daniel. What reason would somebody have to impersonate Oma?//

//"Come, Daniel. We will tread the paths of the garden, and you will tell me of your friends and your enemies."//

Dear God. She had asked, and he had answered. All the stories Jack had ever told him about being captured, all the lectures he'd had to sit through about withstanding torture and not giving anything away, just telling those bastards your name, rank, and serial number, dead men tell no tales, all that came flooding back to Daniel.

Oh, they were in such big trouble.

He focused on breathing again, remembering Teal'c's lessons on meditation, and recited the opening passage from the Book of the Dead in the original Egyptian for good measure. When he was sure he was calm, he opened his eyes again.

Okay. First things first. He had to get out of there. But how could he leave in the knowledge that an unknown enemy had learned all the secrets of the Tau'ri from him? He couldn't possibly. He had no clue who held him captive or why they were getting information from him.

//Always be sure of your escape routes, Daniel Jackson.// Teal'c's voice rumbled through his brain.

He would also have to find the Stargate. If all else failed, maybe he could at least get a message to one of their allies, since he didn't have a GDO and therefore couldn't be sure of anything getting through to the SGC.

He got up and went to the window, checking the horizon for the Stargate. He hadn't noticed one in any of his wanderings, but it was always worth a shot.

Nope, still no gate.

Daniel closed his eyes and ran through Teal'c's meditation techniques again. //I do not expect to see gardens,// he thought. //I do not expect to see anything in particular. My mind is Void. I have no expectations. Show me what you will.//

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

Reality came crashing down. All pretense of calm vanished.

//What the...

I'm on Colona!//

****

Jack's papers were impeccably stacked. He'd evened the sides with a ruler. His paperclips were linked, his rubber bands had all been fired at the opposite wall, and he'd lost seventeen games of Solitaire. All his e-mails had been answered. He'd even polished his boots.

He was running out of ways to procrastinate.

A gentle knock at the door interrupted him. Carter poked her head around the door, and when he didn't yell at her, eased her way in.

"Sir? I thought you were going to talk to Kasuf?"

"I am." He said defensively.

Her eyes tracked over his impeccable desk and the detritus of his earlier target practice and came back to rest on his face, annoyed. "Sir!"

"I know, Carter!" He said quickly, forestalling her reprimand. "And I'll do it. I'm just preparing. Mentally."

She quirked an eyebrow sourly at him. "Don't hurt yourself."

He gaped at her. "That was almost a Danielism, Carter."

She had the grace to look abashed, but raised her chin defiantly nonetheless. "Someone had to, sir. Now go talk to Kasuf, or I'll tell Janet to use the //big// needle next time. With all due respect."

He glared, "Insubordination, Major," but his heart wasn't in it. He spared a nostalgic moment for days of yore when Carter hadn't had the guts to tell him he was being an ass, but he acknowledged in his heart that she was only pushing it this far because Daniel couldn't any more. He sighed grumpily. Having a four-person team really sucked sometimes. It was too obvious when one of the members was missing.

With a petulant look in Carter's direction, he levered himself out of his suddenly sinfully comfortable office chair and ambled out into the hallway. "See you on the flip side, Major," he quipped. This was one Gate ride he wasn't going to put Teal'c and Carter through.

The Gateroom on Abydos was, as always, way too hot for his Minnesota-bred tastes, but it reminded him of Daniel, which was kind of nice. What //wasn't// nice was the old man standing regally at the foot of the Stargate's dais, looking expectantly into the wormhole behind Jack.

"Daniel isn't coming, Kasuf."

Kasuf paled. "Has my Good Son come to harm?"

Jack looked at the ground, the walls, the ceiling, and finally the anxious face in front of him. "Sort of. It's a long story. You might want to sit down."

He'd meant that maybe they should go to Kasuf's tent, or the city of Nagada nestled in the distant sand dunes, but Kasuf plonked himself down on the lowest stone stair and eyed Jack expectantly. Jack sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Maybe he was coming down with asthma or something.

"First off, Daniel isn't dead." Kasuf's eyes closed in relief. "But he's not really alive, either. See, we were on a mission, and there was a bomb that was going to go off...okay, let me rephrase." He started again, making it simpler this time, trying not to get caught up in the details. That would be bad. The details were...bad. "Daniel sacrificed himself to save a whole lot of people, but instead of dying, and he turned into...I dunno, I guess you'd say he's energy. A spirit, maybe? So he's not //dead//, but he's not //alive//." Jack ran his hands through his hair distractedly. "Ah shit, I'm no good at this stuff. I should've sent Carter," he mumbled, and glanced hopelessly at Kasuf. "Do you get what I'm trying to say?"

Kasuf frowned thoughtfully. "I believe so. My Good Son is a spirit? You say he died well."

"Well, not dead, exactly, but yeah," Jack said, trying not to remember the single, toneless, drawn-out beep from the heart monitor as Daniel's body vanished into light. "Real well. He did good. Would've done better if he hadn't died at all, but hey, he did his best."

Kasuf knitted his fingers together and stared fixedly at the ground. "Then he died as he lived. He was a good man."

"Yeah, he was."

They sat for a moment in near silence, Jack resting his hand awkwardly on Kasuf's bony shoulder, at a loss again for anything to say, as the man mumbled what Jack assumed to be a prayer under his breath.

"Will you continue your travels through the Cha'apa'ai? With the rest of your team?" Kasuf asked finally.

Jack perked up, glad to say something he actually had words for. "Oh, yeah. We won't stop that, don't worry. And actually, we even have a fourth team member, Jonas Quinn. One of the guys Daniel saved joined up."

"This Jonas Quinn, he is a good man? Of good family?"

"Well, I don't really know his family, but yeah, I'd say he's a good guy."

"He has proved his honor? He will continue the fight as my Good Son would have?"

"Yeah. He's a lot different from Daniel, but he'll do a good job."

Kasuf nodded in satisfaction. "Then it is good. I will go now and make ready for the ceremony to mark my Good Son's passing into the spirit realms. You will stay?"

Jack thought of Daniel's face, unreadable behind the dark glasses he hadn't removed for Sha're's funeral, and knew without a doubt he couldn't go through that for Daniel. "Nah, I've got to get back. I'm sorry to bring such bad news, Kasuf."

Kasuf studied his hands for a moment. "It is good that he has joined the spirit realms. Now he will see my Sha're. They have been too long apart."

Jack couldn't think of anything to say to that. "Well, good luck. Say hi to Skaara for me."

"I will."

****

Daniel ran through his cover story again just in case, took a deep breath, and cursed his luck. He'd been up most of the night trying to decide what to do next. Thankfully, Not-Oma seemed to have bought his claim of another nightmare after the Colona Revelation's ensuing panic attack, and as far as he could tell, she still thought he was completely in the dark. He had ventured a few more strategic grumbles over the disappearance of the Arabic scroll, just so no one would think he had forgotten, and then studiously spent several hours throwing himself against the metaphoric brick wall of Not-Oma's language. He had actually made some headway, enough to give him a general idea of what was being said, and had then retired to his room.

It was time for the next step.

He stood at the window by the dead curtains and carefully surveyed the room. Okay, so when Not-Oma 'appeared' in his room, she usually came from about...there...

He closed his eyes and ran through the same exercise that had revealed Colona. True to his theory, when he looked at the room again, there was a small unobtrusive opening on the section of the wall Not-Oma used to 'melt' through. He ran through the exercise again, just to make sure he wasn't deceiving himself and getting caught in the Expectations trap, and then crept over and peered cautiously through the doorway. There didn't seem to be anyone occupying the room on the other side.

Tentatively he stepped inside, reciting the opening of the Odyssey to cover his pounding heart and prickling nerve endings. The room was empty, and Daniel relaxed somewhat. He ran through the meditation exercise again, just in case, and stood for a moment, just memorizing the layout of the room. It was fairly Spartan, containing little more than a bed and a desk. The desk seemed the most likely place to start, so he headed in that direction, tiptoeing gingerly across the stone floor like a child playing a game of hide-and-seek. There didn't seem to be any papers or personal effects on top of the desk, but there were still two drawers he could look through.

A close inspection of the drawers revealed no hidden traps or alarms and, his heart in his mouth and the Odyssey in his head, he eased the first one open...

And hit the jackpot. Thankfully, Colona wasn't advanced enough to use complicated and, to him, utterly mystifying mechanical devices for storing information, and he was faced instead with a pile of papers, each inscribed with a simplified version of the difficult writing in the library scrolls. Daniel figured what he was reading now was probably a more modern version of his latest linguistic headache, and thanked his lucky stars it had moved into the realms of what he was familiar with instead of becoming even more obscure.

He pulled out the stack and leafed through it, muttering to himself as he translated on the fly. The top sheets seemed to deal with an alliance of some kind, a proposal written to and presumably accepted by a Council of Elders. With a pang, Daniel realized it dealt with his own subtle interrogation.

"Our part of the alliance, with the addition of the information gleaned from the Tau'ri, should be fulfilled in a few days, a week at the most. I propose that we prepare to bargain for more technology and aid pending a discussion with the Tau'ri regarding the customs and bargaining habits of the..." he squinted at the last word, mentally flicking through his index of languages, looking for the root word...yes...he had it..."...the Serpent One," uh-oh, that had an ominous ring to it - "called Goa'uld by the Tau'ri." Oh, crap. Was there anything the Goa'uld wouldn't mess with?

He read further, hoping to find the Goa'uld mentioned by name, but the proposal gave him no more useful information. Hastily tapping the papers back into a stack, he shoved them into the first drawer and went on to the second.

The second drawer contained a few personal items; a photograph of a group of people, a letter from someone who appeared to be a family member. Nothing he could use.

Daniel sat for a few moments lost in thought before carefully replacing the photograph and slipping noiselessly back through the doorway into his own room. Well. That was all very interesting. So Colona had made a deal with the devil.

Now what was he going to do about it?

He settled himself on the bed and thought hard. Problem number one: he was a prisoner. Problem number two: he had inadvertently given a whole lot of important information to the enemy. Problem number three: they were going to use that information against Earth, and probably kill him. Problem number four: somehow managing to take Not-Oma out of the equation wouldn't help, because he had no idea how much information she had already passed on to her superiors. He was reasonably certain the Colonans hadn't given any information to the Goa'uld yet, because the proposal had indicated that they still hoped to get some useful information from him regarding the business practices of the Goa'uld.

So, at the very least, he had to make sure the Goa'uld/Colonan alliance didn't go through. And even if he managed to control the damage brought about by his own involuntary gut-spilling, there was always the chance someone else from the SGC could run into an illusion-master and be taken in the same way.

He let his head thump back against the wall with a sigh of frustration, thinking bitterly that there had been a reason he had chosen academia and not the military.

Not-Oma walked through the door. "Good evening, Daniel. I see you're still awake."

A detached part of Daniel's mind kindly pointed out to him that she wasn't speaking in riddles, wasn't glowing, was wearing a pantsuit and the Colonan equivalent of pearls, and how had he ever been dumb enough to buy into all this in the first place? Daniel told that part of his mind to shut up and go away, and smiled warmly at Not-Oma. "I couldn't sleep. Can't turn my brain off tonight for some reason."

She returned his smile. "Come walk with me in the garden. The night air will clear your thoughts and help you rest."

The glimmer of a plan began to form in Daniel's mind. "That sounds lovely," he told her sincerely.

****

A knock on the door interrupted Sam's perusal of her magazine. Hastily stuffing the contraband into a desk drawer, she picked up her pen and tried to look studious. "Come in?"

Colonel O'Neill stuck his head through the door. "Carter, you busy?"

A guilty glance at the stack of papers closest to her told her she could arrange to be free. "No sir. I'm all yours."

"Okay. We're going to Teal'c's quarters."

Puzzled, she followed him. He seemed tense about something, but it wasn't anything specific she could put her finger on. It was somewhere between his usual I've-been-thinking-and-it's-making-me-unhappy tension and damn-now-we've-got-to-save-the-world-//again//-and-I-was-just-going-to-go-fishing.

I-i-i-nteresting.

A quick rap on Teal'c's door gained them entry. Teal'c was seated in the midst of his candles performing kel-no-reem, and the Colonel settled himself down on the floor without a single complaint about his knees or the hardness of the cement.

Curiouser and curiouser.

"O'Neill. Major Carter." Teal'c acknowledged.

There was a long pause.

"Sir?" Sam prompted when the Colonel seemed reluctant to begin talking.

Now that he had them all together, he seemed to be at a loss as to what to say. "Have you..." he cleared his throat. "Did you notice anything...//odd// the past few days?"

Sam blinked. "Odd like how, sir?"

"Like...unusual. I don't know, all of a sudden something feels off to me. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's like we forgot to do something."

Sam frowned in concentration. The Colonel had to be feeling pretty 'off' if he was willing to share such a nebulous hunch with his teammates and, obliquely, ask for help in deciphering it. "Can't say I have, sir. When did you start feeling it?"

"After I got back from Abydos. There was just something nagging at me."

"Perhaps, O'Neill, it has something to do with your conversation with Kasuf."

"I guess." He seemed doubtful.

"Well, it's possible. Maybe if you go over exactly what he said, it'll come to you." Not to mention it would be a good way of getting exactly what had happened out of the notoriously closed-mouthed Colonel.

What? So she was curious.

"Well, I got there, and told Kasuf Daniel wouldn't be coming, and explained to him why."

"How exactly did you explain it, sir?"

The Colonel shot her a look that let her know he thought she was indulging her own curiosity here //just// a bit, but answered anyway. "I told him Daniel was a spirit. That he wasn't exactly alive, but he wasn't dead either. Kasuf seemed to take it as Daniel being dead. He said..." the Colonel's voice trailed off.

"Sir?"

"He said that Daniel would be with Sha're now. That they'd been apart too long."

Sam looked down awkwardly. In her peripheral vision she could see Teal'c shift slightly. No matter how many times Daniel forgave Teal'c for killing Sha're, Teal'c would never forgive himself. Never. She knew that Daniel had come to see what Teal'c had done as killing a Goa'uld and setting Sha're free, but it had taken time, and Teal'c wasn't there yet. The thought made her throat feel tight.

"Did Daniel believe in the afterlife?"

Thrown by the apparent non-sequitur, Sam gaped at the Colonel, who appeared to have reached a revelation of some sort. "Sir?"

"Did he believe in the afterlife? You know, Heaven? Pearly Gates?"

"I don't know. He never said anything specifically, but I always got the impression he did."

"Teal'c?"

"I concur."

"Okay, so here's the thing that's bothering me: Daniel still missed Sha're, right? Still had nightmares about her? Still thought she was the only one he'd ever be happy with?"

Teal'c's face tightened. "Yes." He said shortly.

"So why would a guy who believes he's about to see the long-lost love of his life in the Great Hereafter choose to become immortal?"

It was a good point. She could almost let it go by without bringing up the flaws in the Colonel's logic, wanted to, in fact, but the scientist in her wouldn't let her do that. "Sir, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. We're only guessing that he even believes in an afterlife at all, and we have no idea what he and Oma talked about before he ascended. He could have had reasons we never heard about."

The Colonel's face fell. "Yeah, I guess."

"Was that all?" Teal'c said sharply. Sam glanced at his face and mentally marked him as Not a Happy Camper. It was apparently going to take Teal'c a few moments to forgive the Colonel for bringing up Sha're like that.

The Colonel frowned again. "No," he said slowly. "Something's still not right."

"Well, did Kasuf say anything else?"

"Uh... he said Daniel was a good man, that he died the way he lived...asked if we were going to keep going through the Stargate...I told him about Jonas, he asked a lot of questions about Jonas' background."

"And that was all?"

"I told him to say hi to Skaara for me."

Sam quirked a smile. "Well, that probably wasn't it."

He grinned back. "No, probably not. But there was something in there."

"Was it about Jonas? Maybe you forgot to tell Kasuf something about him?"

"No, it wasn't - " he straightened abruptly, alarmed. "Wait a minute, I think I've got it now."

"And?" Sam prompted. The look on the Colonel's face was hovering somewhere between concern and doubt.

"There's something wrong with Jonas. Something off."

"Like what?" Sam asked, hanging on to her patience by her fingernails.

"Okay, when Teal'c defected, he was put through the wringer. Interrogated, locked up, the full nine yards."

"Indeed." Teal'c was distinctly unamused by the memory.

"Okay, so why didn't that happen to Jonas? It's practically the same situation. This is the military. Since when do we not take precautions like that?"

Sam frowned. "You know, sir, you're right. That's really strange."

"It's more than strange. Call it a hunch, but something is wrong here. Something is very very wrong."

"I think I agree with you, sir," Sam said slowly. She could feel it, growing in the back of her brain; a swelling Not Right-ness that was making her skin prickle.

Teal'c leaned forward intently. "What do you wish us to do, O'Neill?"

The Colonel waved one hand helplessly. "I'm not sure. It's too vague to bring to Hammond still. I guess we lay low for now - but keep your eyes on Jonas. There's something fishy going on here and he's the closest thing we've got to a lead."

"Yes sir."

****

The first explosion rocked the building and Daniel was off, dashing headlong through the corridors to the Stargate. People ran crazily around him, screaming in surprise as the Death Gliders roared by overhead and pummeled the area. He dodged a mother and her child, resolutely quashing stirrings of empathy, focussing completely on his goal.

He almost made it, too. A man grabbed his arm, yelled something, and Daniel tried to push him away, unsure whether the man was hysterical or legitimately trying to stop the captive Tau'ri from escaping.

"Daniel! Follow me!" he shouted, and Daniel spared a moment to wonder whether this was Not-Oma without her illusion. It didn't really matter. He had to get to the Stargate. Like yesterday.

Another blast rocked the building and he pried frantically at the man's fingers, panic beginning to set in. What if the building collapsed around the Stargate? He had to get to it before the Death Gliders razed everything. Had to get to the Stargate. Stargate. Now. Now now nownownowNOW!!!

The man reeled back, bringing his arms up reflexively, and Daniel remembered with a detached clarity that these people were empaths as well as illusion-masters. They might be able to project emotions, but then, so could he. He pivoted and kicked out in a move Jack had despaired of him ever mastering and the man went down, his head hitting the ground with an audible crunch. He lay still. Daniel continued on to the Gateroom. There would be time to think about all this later.

//Please be empty...please be empty...//

Another explosion, closer this time, and he was thrown to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain, and kept running.

The Gateroom, when he reached it, was a shambles. There were debris lying everywhere but, miraculously, the Gate was still standing. The few symbols lit up on the DHD and the hand sticking out of a nearby pile of rubble attested to an earlier escape attempt, but Daniel couldn't spare the time to think about it.

//Later.//

He reached down and triggered the DHD's emergency reset, then typed in the first glyphs that came to mind, and sprinted through the Gate.

He was free.

He would have liked nothing more than to throw himself down on the grass of this alien world, gaze up at the green-tinged clouds, and laugh (or cry) himself sick. He leaned over for a moment, resting his hands on his knees, and took several deep breaths. Calm. He could do this. Calm. //Mental breakdowns are not acceptable in the middle of an intergalactic crisis, Daniel.//

He turned to the DHD and dialed another planet, picked at random from a vast mental index. He was taking a deliberately circuitous route to his eventual destination on the offchance that anyone tried to follow. He was probably being overly cautious, but it wouldn't hurt. Now that he was off Colona, some of the urgency of his situation had disappeared. He needed to get back to the SGC, of course, and soon, if only to let them know he was all right, but for now he could spare a few minutes to have a nice little breakdown. He definitely wasn't looking forward to telling them what he'd been doing for the past few weeks. He could just hear it now; "So, Daniel, how did you spend your ascension?" "Oh, I made some friends, translated a language, spilled all the secrets of the base to some potentially very dangerous enemies, took a lot of walks in the garden. Nothing much. Been fishing yet, Jack?"

Yeah, that would go over well.

Daniel brought himself back under control and dialed up his next set of coordinates. He thought three planets would be enough to throw anyone off, and spared a moment to laugh at how that sentence would sound to anyone outside the SGC. Join Stargate Command. Have your molecules ripped apart and reassembled faster than a speeding bullet. Leap galaxies in a single bound.

He was starting to think he really needed a vacation.

"Good Son?!" said an incredulous voice behind him.

Daniel whirled, a grin splitting his face. "Good Father! It's wonderful to see you!"

"Good Son, you are alive?" Kasuf cried, embracing him happily. "O'Neill said this was not so!"

"Yes, he would have. He didn't know. I'm sorry, Good Father, it's a very long story, but I am definitely alive. When was Jack here?"

"But a few days ago. He brought me word of your death."

Daniel squeezed Kasuf's shoulder. "I am sorry to have worried you so. Tell me, how did Jack seem when he was here? Was he all right?"

Kasuf smiled reassuringly. "He was in excellent health, Good Son. He was sad, but not excessively so. Will you eat with us?"

Daniel shook his head regretfully. "I'm sorry, Good Father, I can't stay long. I have to get back to the SGC. Does Skaara still have the box Jack gave him?"

Kasuf rolled his eyes in a long-suffering way. "It never strays from his sight. I am glad you have returned. Now you can rejoin your friends. They cannot be happy with the one they have now."

Daniel froze. Suddenly, Abydos had gotten a lot colder and the thought of any extra time away from the base had gotten a lot less appealing. "What other, Good Father?"

"He is one of the people O'Neill said you saved. I believe he was called Jonas Quinn?"

Daniel's heart stopped, it really did.

"Oh my god, of course," he said out loud. "Daniel, you idiot! Of course they would put somebody in the SGC! Stupid, stupid, //stupid!//"

Kasuf was looking at him in alarm. "Good Son? What is the matter?"

"Kasuf, I'm sorry, I can't explain now. I really, really have to get back. I need Skaara's box. Is he here?"

"No, he went to Ombashu with some friends."

Daniel closed his eyes, a sick feeling of dread and horror spreading up from his stomach. Oh, no. If Jonas somehow got word of the Goa'uld's attack on his planet, who knew what he might do before leaving the SGC? And they would all be caught unawares, unless he could somehow figure out how to transport himself through a trinium/titanium shield and into the Gateroom in time to warn them.

Right. Piece of cake.

"But if this is about the box, he left it with me. O'Neill told him it should not be far from the Cha'apa'ai."

Daniel almost laughed with relief. "You have it? Oh, thank god! Kasuf, I really need it. I promise I'll explain later, but right now I really have to get back."

"Of course. Just a moment."

Daniel spent the few minutes Kasuf was gone pacing agitatedly. When the old man returned Daniel almost snatched the box from him, quickly opening it to take out a GDO.

It had been Jack's idea to stash one on a friendly world, in case they lost theirs somehow. Daniel spared a moment to bless Jack's paranoia.

The Gate whooshed open, and Daniel typed in the code. As he barreled through the event horizon, he heard Kasuf call after him, "I'm expecting that long story sometime soon!"

****

The Gateroom was quiet.

The soldiers stood to attention, their guns held correctly, their eyes fixed straight ahead. In the control booth, the technicians gazed calmly about them. Everything was normal.

The Gate shut down behind Daniel and for a moment he stood frozen, completely at sea. The soldiers continued to stare. The technicians continued to putter.

No one had even noticed his arrival.

What the hell?

With a mechanical swish, the Gate began to dial up.

"Chevron one, locked," said a bored voice over the intercom.

Daniel moved hastily off the ramp and approached one of the guards. "Hello?"

No response.

He waved his hand in front of the guard's face. Still nothing.

Beginning to wonder if he'd wandered into another reality, Daniel turned from the guard and gazed skeptically around the room. He'd had a lot of ideas about how his return would be perceived, but this certainly hadn't been one of them. He was starting to get flashbacks of the whole mess with the crystal skull. Now //there// was an adventure he'd rather not repeat any time soon.

The Gate gushed out its usual spectacular light show and the door at the opposite end of the room opened, admitting a single person. Almost before Daniel had realized who it was walking quickly into the room, he had vaulted the guard rail and planted himself in the center of the ramp.

"Hello, Jonas," he said calmly.

Jonas turned to look at him, a flash of surprise crossing his face. "Doctor Jackson! How did you get here? SG-1 is going to be so glad to see you!" he smiled and started towards the ramp.

"I hope you're not returning to Colona, Jonas."

Apprehension flashed across Jonas' face and was gone, replaced by a pleasant, but confused, smile. "Why not?"

"It's in the middle of a Goa'uld attack. You're probably better off here."

Jonas' face darkened. "How do you know that?"

Daniel braced himself. He was right. He had to be. "I know because I was there. On Colona, Jonas. I never ascended, did I? I was on Colona the whole time."

Jonas' expression never flickered. "I'm not sure what you're referring to, Doctor Jackson."

"It didn't work, Jonas. The Goa'uld attacked because of the deal you made. There is nothing you can do with whatever information you gathered here. You've lost."

Jonas closed his eyes briefly in defeat. "I was only trying to protect my people."

"I know," Daniel said gently.

Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw one of the soldiers stir and begin to raise his gun, bringing it to bear on him.

Daniel's eyes flicked back to Jonas' face. Jonas smiled sadly. "I was only trying to protect my people," he repeated.

Daniel's heart began to pound as he realized what Jonas was about to do. A cold flush spread across the back of his neck as his heart rate increased, preparing him for flight...

...and Jonas flinched.

It was a small movement, as movements go, nothing compared to a 200-pound soldier, all of it muscle, swinging a machine gun in your direction. But Daniel saw it, and remembered the reaction of the Colonan man when he'd panicked during the Goa'uld attack.

He took a deep breath and summoned all his fear, lashing out at Jonas with all the force he could muster.

Jonas staggered back and the soldier's gun hit the floor as Jonas' control was interrupted. The other guards began to move as well, looking confused. Daniel felt a small swell of triumph, and then Jonas got himself back under control.

//White walls stretched on for eternity, bending and stretching whenever he tried to pin them down. His mind skittered about like rain on hot pavement, muffled and disorganized by the drugs. Spectres leered at him from the white padding, and he whimpered, wishing desperately for someone, anyone, to come set him free. He couldn't be crazy, he couldn't! His mind would never betray him that way. It was all he had, all he could rely on, his mind would never...it would never...noooooo, not crazy, please, let me out, let me out, Jack, Sam, Teal'c, I'm not crazy, please, they're here, they're coming, footsteps, footsteps, trudging down the hall, coming for him, coming to get him footsteps footsteps footsteps control daniel control dont let it get you calm down please im not crazy oh god please please someone help me is anyone there someone please help me dont leave me alone here please breathe calm down daniel breathe like teal'c taught you, breathe, concentrate, control it. Clear your mind. Breathe. In, out. In, out, like curtains blowing in the wind. In, out. In, out.//

The padded room faded away and he was back in the Gateroom. Jonas was half-turned away from Daniel, looking over his shoulder at the guards, who were going still again.

Daniel closed his eyes and braced himself mentally, then reached down into the part of himself he kept locked away, accessible only through nightmares. He reached down into the shadows of his memories and grabbed a handful.

//Get out of there, Mom! Get out of there, Dad!//

//I can't care for an eight-year-old boy. It's impossible. Send him to someone else.//

//Then who do you think built them? Martians, perhaps?//

//Behold...your queen!//

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

//You must release your burdens.//

A hand, rising limply from a pile of rubble.

A mother and child, screaming in terror as the Death Gliders thundered by overhead.

One by one, he dragged out his demons, his anger, shame, pain, fear, and loss, accepted them as his own, and packed them into a growing ball of darkness, bending them to his will.

Footsteps on the ramp, coming closer.

Hurry, Daniel.

He dredged up more memories, injecting them into his missile.

Footsteps, closer...closer...there.

Daniel's eyes snapped open. Jonas, who was just passing by him on the left, turned slightly to face him in surprise as Daniel reached over, placed his palm gently on the center of Jonas' chest, right above his heart, and released his burden.

For a split second, the Gateroom was full of ghosts. An empty auditorium stretched into the distance, bordered by a falling coverstone and a demoness with glowing eyes. Children on a playground, shouting and taunting. A vat of writhing snakes.

Jonas screamed, long and drawn out, the scream of someone whose mind is being flayed by a thousand demons with nightmare claws and daymare teeth. He fell to his knees and the ghosts flickered and died , leaving the two of them alone once more.

Looking down at the man crumpled at his feet, Daniel couldn't feel anything but tired.

Jonas' eyes hitched unsteadily upwards. He caught Daniel's gaze and for a split second, he almost resembled someone Daniel might have known well a long, long time ago. And then the resemblance was gone, washed away in the blue light of a zat blast. And another. And with a shimmer, Jonas was gone.

Drained, Daniel looked up. Across the room, Teal'c lowered his zat.

"He broke his promise," Teal'c said softly.

Daniel swallowed and nodded. He'd find out what that was all about later. For now, he was just glad to see Sam elbowing her way around Teal'c and running over to him, tackling him with a bear hug that almost knocked him off his feet.

"Daniel! You came back!"

****

Daniel closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, suffusing his senses with the long-awaited scent of Ambrosia.

Ahhhh...coffee!

A chuckle behind him alerted him to his company. "Have you stopped guzzling coffee since you got back, Daniel?"

Daniel grinned and turned. "No. What would the point of that be? My mission is to make the entire base smell like coffee. When you can smell it as soon as you get through the Gate, I'll consider myself victorious."

Jack snorted. "You might want to check that with Frasier first."

"Nah. She'll just come up with something healthy and practical, like decaf."

Jack clasped a dramatic hand to his heart. "Horrors, no! Not decaf!"

Grinning deviously, Daniel offered Jack a cup. Jack took it, scowling playfully. "Damn you for having the best coffee on base, anyway."

Daniel smirked and went back to his desk, clearing a pile of papers off his spare chair so Jack could sit down. "You know, I still can't believe you didn't get rid of any of my stuff. I half expected to come back to an empty office."

Jack gestured expansively with his now half-full coffee mug. "Yeah, well, who'd want it? We were about to organize a massive bonfire and marshmallow roasting party in the Gateroom when you came back. Talk about bad timing! We were even going to invite Bra'tac."

Daniel tried to imagine Master Bra'tac solemnly roasting marshmallows on the end of a stick and choked on his coffee. Jack smirked.

"Was there anything particular on your mind, Jack?" He'd noticed that Jack had seemed a little... //off// the last few days. He'd tried mentioning it to Sam, but all he'd gotten in response was an expressive eye-roll.

"Just thought I'd make sure you hadn't turned into a lava lamp or something. Have I ever told you you have really bad taste in fairy godmothers?"

Daniel snickered into his mug. "No, I don't think that particular topic of conversation ever came up." So Jack didn't want to talk yet. That was okay. Daniel was patient. Give him a few quality one-on-one hours, a little hockey, and the proportional amount of beer, and Jack would spill. It was all a matter of time.

"Daniel?"

Or they could do it right now. That worked too. He quirked an inquiring eyebrow over the rim of his cup.

"What exactly did you do to Jonas? By the time Teal'c got there he was pretty much down for the count."

"Oh, I just stunned him with my formidable intellect and amazing emotional recall."

Jack blinked.

"No, seriously. When I was making my escape from Colona one of the Colonans grabbed me. He practically fell over when I panicked and I realized he was picking up on the intensity of my emotions."

"So you just...mind blasted him?"

"No, actually, I kicked him in the ribs. You would have been proud."

"I meant Jonas, Book Boy."

"Oh, him. Yeah, pretty much. I just dredged up the most emotional stuff I could think of and threw it at him all at once. It acted like an overload, sort of, and then Teal'c did the rest."

"Yeah, remind me never to piss //him// off."

"No kidding. Yikes."

"And you still have no idea what made the Goa'uld attack Colona?"

"No clue. I guess their negotiations fell through. Wouldn't be the first time we've seen something like that happen, anyway."

"Why were the Colonans trying to make a deal with the Goa'uld in the first place?"

Daniel grimaced. "Well, this is all conjecture, mind you, but Jonas did tell us - or, at least, I think he did - that Colona was at war with the two other nations on the planet. I guess they were just looking for a little outside help with that."

For a moment, Daniel thought Jack was going to call his bluff, and then Jack shrugged, drained his cup, and sighed blissfully.

"God, I missed your coffee."

"Nice to know I'm loved," Daniel said dryly, getting up for a refill.

He was glad Jack hadn't picked up on his little white lie. That last night in the garden, it had occurred to Daniel that the best way he could fight back would be with information...or, in this case, disinformation. Since he'd been spilling his guts so merrily for so long, there was no reason Not-Oma would suspect he was lying. So, as they had strolled aimlessly through the garden, he'd told the biggest whopper of his life. Even worse than telling General West he could get the team back from Abydos, uh-huh, no problem, absolutely sure, sir.

"You know, Oma, I kind of wish I'd known then what I know now. Half of the messes we've gotten into would have been avoided if we'd just had a little more foresight."

"What do you mean, Daniel?"

"Well, when we first set out through the Gate, we had no idea what the rest of the universe held. And the first people we met, practically, we blew up."

"You mean the Goa'uld Ra."

"Yes. If we'd understood then how things were, I don't think we would have done that. It would have been a lot smarter to just ask for an alliance."

"Really? I'm surprised to hear you say that. Haven't you spent the past several years trying to defeat the Goa'uld?"

"Yes, but that was mostly because they tried to attack us first. As soon as we killed Ra we set into motion a whole chain of events that brought us to war with the Goa'uld. If we had gotten their protection in the first place, we could have lived in relative peace. I mean, the Goa'uld are the only ones who have tried to attack us. If we hadn't antagonized them from the start, we would have been fine."

"I see. How would you have gone about getting their allegiance, Daniel?"

"Well, knowing what I know now, I think we should have entered into negotiations, promised them something - maybe a few hosts, people who were dying, like General Carter, and wanted so badly to live - and then, if we decided we needed more than they were offering, threatened them with a different alliance, with someone like the Asgard maybe. I think they would have responded well to that. They're very arrogant, and they respect that when they come across it in other people. I guess I just would have told them to take a hike if they weren't ready to deal on my terms."

"Interesting, Daniel. That is not what I would have expected you to say."

"Daniel?"

"Huh?" Daniel blinked, rousing himself from his reverie. "Did you say something, Jack?"

Jack was giving him a concerned look. "You kind of spaced out on me there, buddy."

Daniel grimaced apologetically. "Just thinking. There are a lot of loose ends still, you know?" No, Jack didn't need to be told why the Goa'uld attacked. Daniel was still trying to come to terms with it himself; he didn't need Jack worrying about it as well. Didn't need Jack to know what he'd inadvertently taught Daniel over the years about priorities and achieving ends by whatever means necessary.

//That stuff I was talking about at my house...the place was bugged...obviously, the whole friendship thing, the foundation, it's all solid...//

Jack would not be proud.

Jack made a face. "Yeah, I know. You never figured out which Goa'uld it was?"

Daniel shook his head and settled back into his chair. "No. None of the stuff I found mentioned him by name, and of course no one told me."

"Yeah. Oh, I have some interesting news, by the way."

Daniel tensed. This, he could feel, was what Jack had come to his office for; not a conversation about lava lamps, not a reiteration of the briefing he'd already sat through, and not even because Daniel did have the best coffee on base. "Oh?"

"Yeah...so, Frasier checked her records. To see if, you know, we could pin down when exactly you were...taken."

Daniel winced.

"Hey!" Jack said sharply. "Don't go beating yourself up about that, okay? We were all taken in. We trusted Jonas from the start, and I doubt we would have figured anything out anywhere near fast enough if you hadn't started kicking up a fuss with Miss Glowworm there."

Daniel gave Jack a wan smile. "Thanks." It was nice of Jack to say that. It might even be true. Didn't change the way he was feeling, though. "So, Janet's records?"

Jack fixed him with a hard look, as if to tell him he wasn't fooling anyone, //least// of all Colonel Jack O'Neill, USAF, then resumed his narrative. "Yeah, so she checked her records. They're gone."

"So...I never came back to the SGC at all? I never even left Colona?"

"Maybe. I mean, they were //gone//, Daniel. All of them. Your whole file. Could have been to throw us off, could have been because you actually did do the whole 'Glow me' thing. Can't say, for sure."

Daniel shrugged. He was much more interested in the Goa'uld and the fate of the Colonans anyway.

"Oh, and another thing. Hammond had Siler check all the security tapes? They're all gone too. Everything from when we gated to Colona to when Jonas left. All gone. Only thing they did manage to keep were your mental pyrotechnics in the Gateroom."

Daniel drained his coffee cup. "It's too bad. I wish we knew exactly what it was we'd stumbled into."

"Yeah, I know. Me too. I guess it's just something we'll never know."

"C'est la vie."

"What?"

"That's life."

"Oh. I knew that."

"I could tell. Did the General try to send a bomb through to Colona?"

Jack gave him a sharp look, probably more for the tonelessness of his voice than for the question itself, and scowled. "He tried. Would have made everybody a lot happier, knowing they were definitely taken care of, but we couldn't dial it up. Either their Gate was buried in the attack or they did it themselves. Either way, we're not going to get anything through any time soon."

"Yeah," Daniel said, staring down into his empty cup.

"You did what you had to, Danny," Jack said softly. "No one faults you for that. Frankly, I'm glad you did what you did. If you hadn't figured it out, we'd all be in one helluva mess right now."

Daniel smiled. It was a real smile, with only a slight undertone of sadness and a little tinge of bitterness. "Yeah, I know. Live and learn, huh?"

Jack smiled back, letting him off the hook. "No shit. Hey, you free tonight? There's a game on. I was going to make it a team thing, but Teal'c's doing some sort of Jaffa voodoo death-of-a-thousand-paper-cuts thing on Jonas' memory and Carter's reading Cosmo again, so it looks like you're it."

Daniel blinked in surprise. "Sam doesn't read Cosmo."

Jack rolled his eyes. "That's what you think. You coming, or what?"

"I'm right behind you."

Feedback? YES PLEASE! This is my first long story, so I want to know if I actually managed to pull it off with any degree of finesse. Thanks to MK, LimeKid, and LittleK for beta work, and, as always, for listening patiently.

© May 5, 2003. 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.