Time Out of Mind

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* TITLE: Time Out of Mind
* AUTHOR: Redbyrd
* EMAIL: redbyrd (at) mindspring (dot) com
* RATING: PG
* CATEGORY: drama, action, hc
* SUMMARY: First they told him SG-1 was dead. Then Daniel had to watch them implant Jack with a Goa'uld. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he was reliving events he'd hoped never to remember, thanks to the memory device.
* SPOILERS: Out of Mind, Into the Fire
* AUTHOR'S NOTE: I thought Daniel seemed a little too stunned in Out of Mind and Into the Fire, even given the circumstances. And it really bothered me that one of the scenes he 'remembers' from Hathor was one he wasn't present for. So- the pen being mightier than the screen, once again I have leapt in to explain everything. Thanks to my fantastic betas, Aelfgyfu and Aurora as well as the story editor for Foundations, who did an amazing job.
* WARNINGS:
* DISCLAIMER:
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.
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The first thing Daniel felt was cold. Bone-chilling, numbing cold, like the glaciers of Antarctica where they'd gone to rescue Jack and Sam. He sucked in a breath. Two breaths. His chest hurt, as if he were trying to breathe with a heavy weight on top of him. His mouth was dry and there was a funny taste. Not a good taste. His eyes cracked open, half-expecting to see slabs of ice, but the ceiling was concrete. He panted, trying to suck in more air. A man he didn't know leaned over him. He blinked blearily.

"It's okay, Dr. Jackson. You're in the SGC. You're going to be fine."

This was the SGC? It certainly wasn't the infirmary. Daniel tried to remember what had happened.

"Wormhole, now departing SGC for P7X-323, leaving from Stargate 1. Please keep your luggage with you at all times--" Jack was chanting his latest mantra for mission departure receiving rolled eyes from Daniel and Sam, smothered grins from the control room technicians and a quiet sigh from General Hammond.

"Good luck, SG-1," Hammond said.

Jack and Sam led the way into the wormhole with Teal'c and Daniel only a step behind.

The man held an instrument to his chest. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

Daniel coughed feebly, starting to tremble. He had a premonition what was coming. He remembered...

Emerging from the wormhole, he nearly stepped on Sam, who was face down and jerking as a tongue of blue flickered around her. He didn't have time for his brain to identify it as the residue of a zat blast before Teal'c pushed him away hard, diving off the platform to escape their attackers. Stumbling sideways, Daniel only had a blurred glimpse to identify their assailants as Jaffa, then he was convulsing with a familiar agony that sucked him helplessly into blue-flecked darkness.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice coming out rusty, as if he hadn't used it in months.

"Don't try to talk just yet. You were frozen," the man said. "And returned through the gate, we presume by some advanced culture. The base commander at the time, General Hammond, and a Dr. Fraiser decided it was too risky to thaw you without the proper technology. They left you in a deep freeze until the technology was developed to safely revive you."

A man in a white suit checked Daniel's pulse and flashed a small light in his eyes, then helped him to sit up. He realized he was naked, lying in a freezing metal capsule, suspended next to what looked like a vast pool of liquid nitrogen. The tremors jerking his body were shivers, and his head felt foggy. But there was still an icy weight in his chest that had nothing to do with the cold.

"Jack, Sam, Teal'c?" he asked.

"Your teammates?" the man said. "I'm afraid they didn't make it."

"How long?" he rasped. He squinted, trying to see the blurred outlines of the room. If he could just focus for a moment. He felt slow and logy. The freezing process, probably.

"Almost seventy-nine years, doctor. The year is now 2077." The man's tone was not unsympathetic but brisk and impersonal.

The numb chill threatened to pull him under. Daniel went with it, letting the cold deaden the aching sense of loss. The doctor eased him out of the capsule and assisted him to a gurney, which they wheeled into an adjoining room. The familiar rounded corridors told him they were still in Cheyenne Mountain.

The coverlet they laid over him was scratchy and thin. The medical personnel allowed him to sit up while they attached a tubed apparatus to his chest and fussed over readings from unfamiliar devices. The uniformed man was still talking. Daniel barely listened. He couldn't get the image out of his mind. Sam and Jack, crumpled on the dais in front of the gate. He strained to remember what had happened to Teal'c. He thought he remembered a staff weapon blast as he got zatted, but he couldn't be sure. Anyway, it could have been one of the other Jaffa firing.

"I know you must feel rather confused right now," the man was saying.

What was his name? Daniel's head wasn't clearing. He pushed the distress away, reaching for a calm he didn't feel. Trofsky. That was it. The rest of his words floated in, recorded by the analytical part of Daniel's brain that never seemed to shut down. Cryogenic hibernation. The advanced race that must have sent them back. The Goa'uld.

"Why are you asking me about the Goa'uld?" Daniel asked absently. "We must file a pound of paperwork for every mission through the gate. Everything we know is there. Besides, it must be out of date anyway." He saw the man exchange a glance with the doctor, and the doctor did something to the device beside the examination table.

Daniel floated a little further away, still feeling numb.

"Many of those records were destroyed in an attack twenty years ago," Trofsky said. "We have some of them, but frankly we're not sure what we're missing. We are hoping you can corroborate some of those reports and fill in any gaps." The doctor brought a tray with several small devices on it. "We have a new technology to help you remember."

"Are we still fighting the Goa'uld then?" Daniel asked, almost dreamily. Records destroyed in an attack? That didn't sound good. Especially since there must be a dozen copies of every report. Still, the classified nature of the program must encourage--have encouraged--them to limit the number of copies...

The doctor's hands felt hot against his chilled skin.

Trofsky said, "Yes, we've been at war with them pretty much ever since you opened the gate. The SGC probably isn't that different from when you knew it. We have twenty-eight teams, plus ten more operating from the off-world colonies."

A sharp pain spiked through his temple, and Daniel hissed. "What's that?" he asked.

"Relax, doctor, that's all the pain you'll feel," Trofsky said soothingly. "I want you to think about the Goa'uld you've met. All you have to do is let the right memories float to the surface, and the device will project them for us to see."

"Well, the first Goa'uld we met was Ra," Daniel said. In a blinding, disorienting instant he was back on Abydos.

Daniel scarcely noticed being forced onto his knees as he tried to drink in every detail of the costumes, the fantastic masks and exotic weapons carried by the people around him. The gold-masked pharaoh seated himself on the throne before the eye of Ra, followed by a gaggle of solemn children. Slaves, no doubt.

When the sun god spoke, his voice was unnaturally deep, with strange overtones. "You have come here to destroy me." Two guards carried in the device on a litter, and laid it on the floor between them and the stairs.

Daniel had no time to wonder that he understood the pharaoh's speech as he took in the clearly Terrestrial nature of the apparatus with the familiar triangular radiation symbol. No wonder the alien had attacked them. He turned to O'Neill accusingly. "What is that? It's a bomb, isn't it? That's what you were looking for. What the hell were you thinking? Why did you come here?" The soldier remained stoic and indifferent in the face of Daniel's disgust.

Ra barked a command at the guards, and pressed a stud at the side of his mask. The apparent masks were revealed as complex technological artifacts when they folded themselves smoothly into the necks of the armor. Not as simple as they looked.

There was movement beside him. Daniel turned to see O'Neill snatching a staff weapon as the jackal-headed guard staggered sideways. The other guards were starting to level their weapons. Acting on pure instinct, Daniel moved between them. Was O'Neill crazy? There were too many; he was going to get himself killed! "No, no wait--" he protested, to O'Neill and the guards both. Now the weapon was pointing at him, which wasn't what he wanted at all. Daniel reached out an imploring hand, trying to stop this before anyone was hurt, but it was too late. "NO!" There was a flare of light and burning agony as the staff flashed and he was falling, suddenly cold--

Daniel squinted, trying to focus on Trofsky, his mouth falling open. Like a faint ghostly aura, the charred smell of his own burning flesh lingered and then dissipated. He flinched from the ghost of remembered agony. "What was that?" His gaze slipped sideways. There was a seemingly solid screen, hanging in the air beside him. Surely that hadn't been here a moment ago?

"The memory device helps you to recall the details of your experiences, and they are displayed on the screen--" Trofsky indicated the silvery rectangle. "I'm sorry if this is difficult for you. You must understand that we desperately need this information." The man looked aside for a moment, then held Daniel's gaze. "To be truthful, Doctor, the war isn't going very well. Anything you can tell us--"

Daniel swallowed, wishing the fuzziness would go away. "I'll certainly try."

Trofsky asked. "Ra is dead, correct?"

"Oh yes-"

Daniel tugged Sha're off the ring transporter ignoring the half-guard still oozing messily onto the floor. O'Neill carried the bomb hastily over. The red numbers on the timer flipped over to single digits. Daniel grabbed the ring control and slammed it down as the colonel stepped back. "Nine, eight, seven--"

Rings rose around it, and the bomb turned white and disappeared. O'Neill crossed to the door, with Daniel and Sha're following. The dunes were black with people. A lone udajeet was sitting on the sand beside the gate to the pyramid. Daniel still counted aloud as he searched anxiously for Skaara in the crowd, "Four, three, two, one?" Nothing happened. His and Jack O'Neill's eyes met, filled with apprehension and dawning chagrin. Then Daniel realized and said, "Plus transport time!" and a titanic explosion split the sky as Ra died in the thermonuclear inferno--

This time Daniel managed to maintain his composure as the futuristic SGC swam back into his field of vision.

Trofsky nodded briskly and said, "Well, he certainly shouldn't be a problem. I believe you also met Apophis?"

Daniel didn't even have time to nod. The memories seemed to surface easily, without conscious prompting. He flashed on the wrapped body being sent through the Stargate but wrenched his thoughts back to the present before he could be thrown into another of these hellacious flashbacks. "We killed him, too," Daniel said. He let the numbing ice creep back. Not thinking. I'm not thinking. Jack would laugh his ass off--if he weren't dead. "He couldn't have been the one who ambushed us." Not unless Sokar is a lot more forgiving than any other Goa'uld we've met.

"So if it wasn't Apophis, what other Goa'uld could it be?" Trofsky asked.

"Well, there seems to be a lot of them," Daniel temporized. He felt a remote sense of shame for stalling. These people needed his help. He let the memory of Apophis' captor surface. "Sokar."

Daniel stood in the control room staring at the fearsome red face projected through the iris.

"People of the Tau'ri," the huge voice rumbled. "You have taken what is mine. For this you will be destroyed."

Daniel cut the vision short, finding it easier to control when the images weren't so emotionally charged. Another Goa'uld they'd met. "Heru-ur."

The Goa'uld stared at Jack O'Neill emerging from the gate. Daniel tried to scramble up from the floor, winded by the force of Heru-ur's blow. Jack was shooting at the Goa'uld, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off his force shield.

Heru-ur was not mistaking Jack's intentions as anything but hostile, however. "You dare challenge me?" he demanded.

He raised his hand, wrapped in the glittering menace of his ribbon device. Jack pulled a knife from his belt and said laconically. "I was thinking about it." He threw the knife hard and straight at the tiny target of the alien's hand. It hit solidly, going through the palm with a meaty thunk. Sparks flared around the device.

Heru-ur roared in pain, "You will pay for this insolence!"

Daniel cut the vision well short of the bittersweet return of Sha're. That hadn't been too bad. Who else? Hathor. He hardly remembered anything about her, so it should be okay. "And then of course, there was Hathor. She almost succeeded in doing some pretty big damage."

He'd thought that what he'd see would be the meeting in the holding cell, when Hathor had first arrived on the base. What he got instead was a completely unfamiliar scene.

Daniel slumped on the floor of the bathroom, bruised and sticky under his uniform. Hathor had told him to get dressed afterward, and he'd obeyed without thought or hesitation. Then there'd been a hazy impression of Sam shaking him, but he couldn't fight through the fog to respond. There was something wrong about the way he felt, what he was doing. He shouldn't be with her, feel like this--but every time he tried to think it through, Hathor would come close to him and he'd start to drift.

There was a knock on the door of the outer chamber, and Hathor answered. Jack. Jack had come looking for answers, but Hathor was distracting him. Jack couldn't have seen Daniel, or the colonel would have been far more on his guard. There was something wrong, and he had to tell Jack, but everything was hazy and indistinct. His gaze snapped to his goddess as she spoke to his friend, and his mind drifted. Hathor was good. She wouldn't--

"We must praise you and gift you a great honor," Hathor said, standing way closer to Jack than the soldier would normally have been comfortable with.

Daniel raised his head to get a better view through the half-open door. There was something about Jack's expression--

"Yeah, I'm sure that would be just great, but not right--" He broke off as she stepped nearer, seeming to lose his train of thought completely.

Daniel felt sweat break out on the back of his neck and an urgent need to scream at Jack to run, get away. The part of his brain that knew this was only a memory, also knew this was true, something he'd seen while under Hathor's influence and never remembered--until this machine had pulled it out of him. The rest of his brain was caught up as if it were seeing this for the first time.

Hathor unbuttoned Jack's shirt, and stepped back to shed her tunic. An orange stone similar to that of a hand device glowed on her belly. She moved forward to embrace him, taking his weight without flinching as Jack suddenly slumped against her. His face twisted, agonized.

Daniel struggled to understand what he was seeing. Jack was being rewarded. Hathor liked him. Why wasn't he happy?

"Do not worry yourself," Hathor said. "You will enjoy the rich rewards that come of what we are giving you. You will cherish the good health and long life that goes with being..." She let Jack go and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor, revealing the pouch of a Jaffa on his belly. The queen switched to the eerie doubled Goa'uld voice and finished with gloating pleasure, "Hathor's first new Jaffa."

The ghastly events of that day tumbled back into Daniel's mind in disconnected fragments. Hathor had drugged him. With pheromones, or so Janet had believed. And then they'd--they'd-- He'd never have chosen that. Never would have betrayed Sha're. He was raped. He hadn't wanted to talk about it, had blandly denied any knowledge of what had happened to him under Hathor's influence. Truthfully, he hadn't wanted to remember, had been grateful that the aftermath had been nothing more serious than a few vague impressions and inchoate nightmares. Now he couldn't stop remembering.

Hathor sat in a steaming tub in the locker room, hundreds of Goa'uld larvae roiling about her. Daniel knelt at her side, consumed with passion and devotion while Hathor spit venom. "We demand that the woman you call Carter be brought before us so that we may gain retribution."

Daniel struggled to reconcile the loyalties of the past with the service to his queen. "Captain Carter does deserve to be punished, my queen, but she does not know what she is doing. I beg of you to show mercy."

"She deserves no mercy from us," Hathor insisted. "She will make amends with her death."

Then Jack and Sam were there, firing tranquilizer darts at Hathor's guards.

"I don't think so," Sam said.

Hathor fired the ribbon device, flinging Sam into the wall, while Daniel watched in frozen horror, trying to understand why his friends were attacking his queen.

Hathor turned to Jack. "You have failed us, our love. You will not fail us again."

She raised her ribbon device to attack Jack, but Sam was back on her feet and firing her pistol at Hathor, shot after shot. Hathor disappeared beneath the surface as the tub went up in flames, the larvae burning to death.

Daniel's eyes widened at the attack, and he screamed, "No!!" A few burning larvae tumbled out of the tub writhing as they burned. Daniel stood rooted to the floor, torn between desperately needing to protect Hathor and the utter refusal to hurt his friends.

Jack and Sam picked up their weapons and rushed forward. "Get these airmen out of here! Daniel, let's go! Move it!" Jack ordered. He dragged one soldier away from the fire by his collar, leaving Daniel stunned with horror at the death of his Beloved.

No! Daniel wasn't sure for a moment whether he'd said that aloud or not, but he managed to break out of the vision, fixing his thoughts firmly on conjugating verbs in Goa'uld.

"What's wrong?" Trofsky asked.

Daniel said, "Nothing. I just - I really need to know exactly what happened to my friends." The adrenaline seemed to have cleared his head a bit, but he kept a part of his mind on the Goa'uld words. He was starting to get the hang of the memory device. To some extent he had to focus his thoughts on a particular memory before the device could replay it. Focusing his mind on abstractions seemed to prevent it from being triggered.

Trofsky's voice was calm. This was just history to him. "As I said, they were sent back through the gate. They were already dead. That's all I know."

"What about General Hammond?" Daniel asked.

"I'm happy to report he lived to a ripe old age of 93," the officer replied.

"So... everyone I ever knew basically is gone," Daniel said slowly, struggling to accept it. Sha're. God, she could still be alive, still possessed by the Goa'uld who had taken her. But after all this time as a host, she couldn't be anything like the woman he had known.

"I'm afraid so."

Daniel struggled against the fog, trying to think clearly. Seventy-eight years. It seemed like only a few weeks ago they'd returned from time traveling into the past. "Cassandra!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Trofsky looked mildly puzzled.

"Is Cassandra here? She should be still alive." How old had Cassandra been when they'd seen her in the gate room? Certainly past seventy. He frowned slightly. The gate room had been abandoned, shrouded in dust covers. That seemed unlikely if the time he was in now was anything like what he had left behind. He felt a flicker of hope. Cassandra had sent them back before. Maybe there was still a chance he could go home. Maybe even in time to save his team! The jolt of excitement made the heart monitor spike. He had to deliberately unfocus his thoughts as he felt the device on his temple tremble on the edge of another flashback.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, I don't know who that is," Trofsky said. "There's no one currently with the SGC who was alive when you were last here."

There was something badly wrong. Cassie must have been connected with the project somehow so she could send them back. That time couldn't be too far away. 'The SGC probably isn't that different from when you knew it,' Trofsky had said. If the SGC was still in operation, then SG-1's visit to the future hadn't happened yet. Cassie had to still be here. Daniel winced and tried to relax before he triggered another flashback. Chill fog and soothing ice. Ice didn't remind him of anything. Except that he was still cold.

"Are you all right?" Trofsky asked leaning in.

"Tired," Daniel said. He needed time to wrap his head around this, and he didn't want it playing on their damnable screen in living color while he did. There were still faint chills shivering through his system. Sitting there shirtless made him uncomfortable. Why was he still naked? Couldn't they at least give him some clothes?

"Dr. Jackson should rest now," the physician said quietly to the general. "He's still weak from the revival process.

"Of course," Trofsky said.

Daniel was vaguely disturbed by the man's tone. He hadn't called Trofsky 'sir', for one thing. Even the civilians at the SGC addressed Hammond with respect. But beyond that, there was a note of something that was almost fear in the voice. Even if Trofsky was the boss, a doctor shouldn't be afraid of him. The man helped him to lie down, impersonally tugging the uncomfortable blanket up over Daniel's chest. Daniel's head swam as the man fumbled with the controls and Daniel realized he was being medicated. He tried to open his mouth to tell the man not to sedate him, but the edges of the room faded out before the words could form on his lips.

#

"Daniel!"

The sound of his name and the hand on his shoulder woke him as Jack and Sam's concerned faces swam into view. Oh, god. Thank god, he must have been dreaming. Daniel blinked. He was still in the same room as before, still in the future. Sam and Jack were wearing the same white coats as the doctor had been. Jack was holding the device that had pumped the medication into his system. Daniel rubbed his forehead but the apparition didn't go away.

"I don't understand," Daniel said. "They said--" All the misgivings he'd had before came rushing back. What was going on? Why had Trofsky lied?

Sam answered both questions at once. "They're Goa'uld, Daniel."

Goa'uld? But how-"What year is it?" he asked.

Sam responded with certainty. "1999, most likely."

Daniel said slowly, "So this is all a ... hoax." It was too much. Too much relief , too much what he wanted to hear. He wondered if he were hallucinating, if he'd finally snapped. His brain felt dipped in treacle, sticky thoughts plodding between his ears.

Jack confirmed, "Big hoax. I'd say so."

A hoax. So--what he remembered was real, but not the truth--? Daniel decided to go with it for now. If it turned out he was crazy, so be it. "I have more questions, but that can wait."

"Yeah. Come on." They helped Daniel to sit up, and Jack produced a green uniform similar to Trofsky's. "We ran out of medical personnel to whack," Jack explained. "So this will have to do for now." Sam went to guard the door as Daniel pulled the outfit on, hands becoming surer as the medication-induced fog started to recede. Jack continued to fill him in. "They gave me the same story they apparently told both of you, that we'd been frozen for decades. This whole facility is a mockup of the SGC, a copy. I figured it out, knocked out a doctor and came to find you."

"Teal'c?" Daniel asked. The uniform was a tolerable fit, but the boots were both tight and short in the toes. Better than going barefoot, however.

"I don't know," Jack said. "We haven't seen him. Maybe they thought this wouldn't work on a Jaffa."

Daniel stood, finding his legs rubbery but functional. "I'm ready."

Jack nodded. "Okay, follow me." He led the way out into what still looked like a corridor of the SGC. Daniel wondered if maybe they were all loopy from drugs and cryo-revival. But he stayed behind the others, as Jack and Sam checked out the corridor ahead of them. Sam opened a side door which should have led to the armory, but found only a blank wall behind it.

"Damn cost-cutting," Jack said.

Sam responded, "This facade is obviously part of a bigger Goa'uld facility." They continued checking doors, looking for one that led out of the elaborate set. "Complete with Horus and Serpent Guards."

"What?" Daniel said. "Horus and Serpent? That's kind of an odd alliance, isn't it?" The Horus guards had served first Ra, then Heru-ur, both Apophis' enemies. Why would they be working together?

They went through the door into the gate room, which, minor changes aside, looked much as Daniel remembered it. Jack and Sam walked up the ramp as Daniel looked around curiously. "I've never seen this place so deserted," he said.

Sam replied, "Guess they figure they don't need to keep up the act if we're unconscious."

Jack was examining the gate and kicked at it in disgust. "It's fake."

Daniel pulled open the locker, which ought to have had weapons in it. It was empty. He shut it again. It looked like ordinary sheet metal, the same cabinet he'd seen there dozens of times. "I don't understand. Who would have spent enough time on the base to be able to reproduce it in this kind of detail?"

Apophis had been on the base but mostly in the infirmary. Could he really have remembered enough to do something like this? Sam and Jack exchanged a glance, and Daniel said, "You don't think Apophis-"

His skin crawled as a distinctive Goa'uld voice said, "Silence!"

Daniel stared as the air behind the gate began to ripple. Jack and Sam followed his line of sight to see Hathor materialize out of thin air. She walked down the ramp toward him, ignoring his teammates. Fragments of memory tumbled--'-we owe you our gratitude indeed. Perhaps we should choose you to be our new beloved. Together, we should celebrate.' She moved closer, until he could smell her perfumed breath--

Daniel shuddered as Jack said, "Oh, I was so hoping never to see you again."

The doors on both sides of the gate room opened, revealing Trofsky and a woman in white, accompanied by Horus and Serpent guards. Hathor stopped in front of Daniel, who was having trouble breathing. Creeping dread tugged at the edges of his thoughts. This woman had drugged and assaulted him. She'd fooled him into betraying his friends and his world. No wonder he hadn't wanted to remember...

"We have indeed missed you, our beloved," she said, stroking his cheek.

Unable to prevent it, Daniel fell into a half-remembered scene.

Daniel and Hathor stood on the ramp. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She was fascinating- mythology come to life, standing there in front of him.

"Did you ever wonder from whence the children come?" she asked.

"Are you saying they come from you?" Daniel asked wonderingly. Somewhere behind the odd euphoria a tiny instinct was screaming, but it was drowned by the intensity of her presence.

"Yes," Hathor said, "and others like us."

Insight, illumination, comprehension. The truth unfolded before him like a complex, fascinating sickly flower, tinged with unacknowledged horror. "My god. You're like a queen bee! You create the Goa'ulds!"

Daniel was back in the gate room, still a breath away from her, and she was still speaking, "-think that we would have gone to these lengths if you were not already immune to our organism?"

There was a brief silence through which Daniel watched Hathor with the fascination of prey helpless before a serpent.

"Do you like our guards?" Hathor asked, moving away from Daniel at last. He drew in a careful breath. She moved behind Trofsky to put her hand on one of the Jaffa's shoulders. "We managed to lure them from the remote outposts of our enemies."

Daniel backed away a few steps closer to his teammates, wondering how she'd done it. Jaffa were immune to her wiles, or at least Teal'c had been. He wished Teal'c were with them now. Teal'c could outnumber half a dozen other Jaffa all by himself.

Hathor continued. "We are quietly building our forces before the System Lords even know that we are alive. But doing so is difficult when we have limited knowledge of the current state of the Empire."

That explained the interrogation, Daniel realized.

Jack said, "Let me take a guess. It's just a wild guess, but... that's where we come in, right?"

"We know more than you do," Carter said, understanding.

"Perhaps." Hathor didn't like hearing that. She turned away from the guards and came back up the ramp towards the three of them. "We are prepared to offer you a life of luxury as servants in our royal court in exchange for information." She passed Daniel and Sam, went to Jack. "Deny us, and you will not enjoy the alternative."

Yeah, threatening Jack. Like that would work.

Like clockwork, Jack opened his mouth and the smart remark fell out. "You know--you really should do something about the breath."

She frowned, "How do we contact the Asgard so that we might ally with their forces?"

O'Neill volleyed back, "Try Roswell. Little place in New Mexico."

Daniel wondered if she actually understood the reference, or if she knew from his tone that Jack was being flippant. She gave him a dirty look, and moved on to Sam, pulling a GDO from inside her filmy robe and dragging it over Sam's neck. "What is the sequence of numbers necessary to open the barricade protecting your Stargate?"

Sam looked at her stonily, revealing nothing. Hathor turned away, ignoring Daniel. Jack would have made a sarcastic comment about feeling left out in his place, but Daniel was suddenly sure why she wasn't threatening him. She had other plans.

They stood in the VIP room, so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. "The code of life. We do so enjoy the method of procuring the code in your species." She lifted his glasses off his face as he struggled to think through the really inappropriate rush of blood to his groin. She was just so--

"It is much more pleasurable than most," she said.

"I bet," Daniel said, the most intelligent response he could make under the circumstances.

"Since you are to be our first pharaoh you will honor us by being the one to contribute the code," Hathor told him, moving in to touch her lips to his.

The creeping dread finally penetrated the arousal clogging his brain. "You want me to help you create more Goa'ulds?!"

She tried to pull his head down, but Daniel grabbed her arm, fighting the fog that was clouding his mind. This wasn't right. She wasn't right. Her faintly sweet-smelling breath tickled his lips, and he felt his will eroding, sapped by her presence. His hand fell away.

"Now that Ra is gone, we are finally free to rule this planet," Hathor said, "with you, our beloved, at our side for all eternity." This time when she kissed him, he responded mindlessly, conscious of nothing but the urgent passion she had roused.

Daniel resurfaced in the mockup of the gate room struggling to keep his brain from petrifying. He'd guessed what had happened from the evidence on his body when her control had finally had been lifted. Earlier today, the memory device had forced him to relive the aftermath. But that was different from actually remembering the act. His stomach turned over, and he felt paralyzed with fear and remembered helplessness.

Hathor was standing in front of a new Jaffa, reaching into his pouch. "An opportunity has presented itself at a most fortuitous time." Her hand came out holding a squirming Goa'uld, bigger than any he'd ever seen. That was the size of a mature Goa'uld? Daniel swallowed hard to keep from spewing. That was what they had signed Jacob up for? Hathor held the symbiote up. "Our friend here is ready for a host."

She smiled nastily at them. "Tell us... which one of you shall it be?"

Daniel kept his mouth shut. Hathor already knew what she was going to do. This illusion of choice was a farce. She wanted him to beg her to spare him, and then make him watch while Sam or Jack were implanted before his eyes. The crushing futility of it was nearly overwhelming. He hovered on the brink of memory and unfocused his mind, staring blankly ahead.

"We ask you once more," Hathor taunted. "Which one of you shall be host to our new friend?"

Trust Jack never to be at a loss for a smart remark.

His friend looked at the mature larva and said, "He has her eyes."

"Silence!" Hathor snapped. She came up to Daniel stroking his face again. He stood immobile. "Shall it be--our beloved? We could spend an eternity together. Do you not remember the joys that we once shared in one another's arms?"

Daniel had to force the words woodenly from between dry lips, holding his mind blank by sheer force of will. "I really try not to."

Her eyes flashed, promising him he would regret that, but she moved on to Sam. "Shall it be the female then? She who would challenge us?" She paused, eyes narrowing, and looked more closely at Sam. "You have since been possessed by a Goa'uld, we sense. Perhaps once more?"

"I'm not afraid," Sam said, with an edge of defiance.

Daniel wished he could sound that confident. He knew Sam must be scared.

Hathor smiled, "You should be, my dear, for the pain a symbiote can inflict in its host is unimaginable." She moved to Jack and the snake lunged at him, hissing, as Jack leaned away from it. "It seems that our friend has chosen," Hathor said.

Jack looked at the snake and gestured to his hair, "What, the grey doesn't bother you?" His gaze shifted to Hathor. "All right, fine, let's do it. Just, please, I beg of you, not in the back of the neck, I've got some problems--" he grabbed for the symbiote in the middle of his distracting chatter, only to stiffen and crumple as the woman in white zatted him. The symbiote fell to the floor and slithered away under the ramp.

"Fool!" Hathor turned on the woman furiously.

"He would have harmed the symbiote," she protested.

"Which you have done in his place!" Hathor retorted. "Return it to the safety of the Jaffa." She looked down at Jack. "Take him somewhere where he can be properly restrained."

Two of the Jaffa picked up Jack by his upper arms, while Trofsky rounded up the symbiote. Sam and Daniel were prodded to follow, Daniel wrapped in the numbness that might be the only thing that could get him through this.

The white-coated woman instructed, "Take him to the--"

She used some Goa'uld word Daniel didn't understand.

"We can secure him in the --."

The what? The linguist in Daniel was puzzled by the meaning. Something cold. Cryogenics chamber, it must mean, Daniel realized as they were led back into the room where he had first awoken. Jack was stuffed unceremoniously back into the cryo-capsule and strapped down.

Daniel could feel Sam's gaze flickering from Jack to him, but he didn't let his expression change. Rule number whatever-the-hell-it-was in the book of what-to-do-when-captured according to Jack. When imprisoned, don't let your captors use you against your fellow prisoners or vice-versa. Daniel let the stoniest expression he was capable of settle onto his too-expressive features as he tried not to think of anything that might trigger another memory. He had to be ready, had to do something.

He stood impassively through the implantation that followed, never letting his gaze waver from Jack's face. The guards were too many, and too well armed. This was what Sha're and Skaara had suffered. It was his next worst nightmare, after the loss of his Abydonian family, that one of his friends, his SG-1 family would be taken. He still didn't believe Hathor would allow Jack to kill him, not at first. Oh, Jack would be forced to kill Sam, probably. But Hathor still called him her 'beloved'. Daniel wouldn't die until he had paid for rejecting her. Or until he killed her. Bad enough to remember Jack convulsing as Hathor carved the womb of a Jaffa into his unwilling body. The helpless rage as Daniel watched the snake go into his friend felt like molten lead in his veins. He hoped Jack could read the promise in his eyes. I will kill her for this, Jack. I swear it.

As Jack writhed in agony, Daniel heard a staff weapon fire and the unmistakable chatter of automatic weapons. He looked in the direction of the noise. A rescue, it had to be. Oh, the irony. If they could have been just a few minutes faster-

Sam and Daniel were prodded out of the room by a single Jaffa, and they exchanged a quick glance. This would be their chance if they ever got one. They walked to the next turn of the corridor and heard the guns firing in the distance. They exited the SGC mock up into the mother ship proper.

Then a green-clad figure popped out of an alcove aiming a weapon at their guard and demanding, "Surrender your prisoners and drop your weapon. Now!"

Sam hit the startled guard in the pouch with all her strength while Daniel knocked the weapon from his hands as smoothly as if they'd rehearsed it. They dove out of the line of fire as Makepeace and two squads of SGC Marines blew him away with enthusiasm. Daniel didn't think he'd ever been so happy to see Marines before.

Sam got to her feet and walked toward them, picking up the guard's weapon. "Colonel Makepeace?"

Makepeace's gaze roamed over her, assuring himself that she was as undamaged as she looked. "Where's Colonel O'Neill?"

"He's been taken as a host." Sam said grimly.

Daniel thought it was just as well he couldn't see her expression. Makepeace's was bad enough. "What?" The incredulous exclamation melted into a sort of horrified disbelief. Makepeace looked at Daniel as if hoping he would contradict what Sam had just said. It made Daniel like Makepeace more than he ever had before. He felt some of the same incredulity himself. Jack was always so ... Jack. It was horrifying to think of another intelligence wiping the humor and humanity from his face, using his hands to do deeds the real Jack O'Neill would have violently abhorred.

"Here, take cover," Makepeace pulled them back into a sheltering alcove.

"We were captured by Hathor..." Sam started.

"We know, Captain," Makepeace said.

"We haven't been able to find Teal'c," Daniel said. "Do you..."

"He's fine. Made it back to the SGC and went through the gate a couple of days ago to look for you." Makepeace's second had shed a pack and was pulling out bundles of cloth. "Here. We're going to need to extract to the gate through the woods. It will be easier if you two are in camo."

"Not to mention there'll be less chance of being shot by a friendly," Sam said, shedding her jacket, to put the uniform on over her white suit.

Daniel accepted the second bundle. He started to unfasten his shirt but his gaze fell on the distinctive outline of Makepeace's MP-5 outlined against gold paneling, and the memory device triggered.

Jack stood with Bra'tac in the corridor of the Ha'tak just outside the control room. "You will know when it is time," Bra'tac said.

"Whoa," Daniel protested. "You're just going to walk in there alone?"

Bra'tac gave him an ironic look. "I am Klorel's loyal servant."

They crouched in the corridor, listening as Bra'tac defied the Goa'uld. When he defiantly told Apophis he would die free, Jack rolled his eyes. "Our cue, I think!"

He glanced at his team. "Let's go. Daniel, watch our backs." With a gesture he indicated that Sam should give her weapon to Daniel.

He accepted it dumbly watching as she pulled her zat. His team went in firing. Daniel turned to the hallway listening to the sounds of the battle behind him and praying they'd be all right. He wished he could be in there helping and hoped that Jack hadn't stationed him here only to protect him. Then he heard the clank of armored footsteps approaching--

"Jackson!" He surfaced to Makepeace shaking him ungently. "Get your head out of your ass and move. We need to get going."

Sam was nearly changed in the seconds Daniel had just lost. He stripped off the false SGC uniform and pulled on the fatigue pants and T-shirt. When Makepeace turned away to listen to the radio, his hands went to the device on his temple. This had to stop. If he didn't get this thing out, he was going to get them all killed. He got his fingernails under the edge, feeling a warning pain and ignored it.

When Sam saw what he was doing her eyes widened in fear, "Daniel--!"

The piercing jolt as Daniel yanked the device out was bad, but it subsided after a few moments to a pounding headache.

"The colonel and I didn't want to tamper with the devices because we weren't sure they could be safely removed," Sam finished worriedly.

Daniel winced, feeling wetness on his temple. He raised his fingers to the spot, and they came away bloody. "They can't be painlessly removed," he said. "The jury is still out on safely. But Hathor didn't use anything special to remove Jack's, and I'm damned sure I couldn't risk leaving it in without endangering all of us."

Sam stared at him for a moment and nodded, her fingers going to her own device. "You're right."

"Here, let me," Daniel said. He gripped the device. "Brace yourself," he said, feeling her tense. "On three. One, two--" He yanked early, and she gasped.

"Oh god." She put her hand to her head. One of the Marines handed them some tissues. "Thanks." She wiped her temple and then bent down to pull on her jacket.

Daniel pocketed the devices, wiped off his fingers and followed Sam and Makepeace down the corridor, dabbing at the trickle of blood running down his cheek.

Makepeace activated his radio. "Stand by. We're pulling out. ETA is five minutes." He waited a moment, but there was no answer. "Razor, come in, Razor. SG3, we have lost radio contact, please respond."

Sam asked, "What's the situation?"

Makepeace said, " My team was covering the Stargate. Lieutenant, pass the word, we're moving out."

Leaving? Daniel protested, "Wait! What about Jack?"

Makepeace didn't even hesitate, making Daniel decide that he didn't like him that much after all. "He's a casualty."

Sam jumped in, "Sir, if we can get him back to Earth-"

"Captain, if my team has lost control of the Stargate, we're not going anywhere," Makepeace said curtly. "Now let's go, people. We're pulling out, let's go!" He strode off down the hall, getting everyone moving.

Daniel and Sam exchanged a dismayed look as they followed.

Daniel glared at the colonel's back and said quietly, "Sam, we can't just leave."

Sam said in a low voice, "Think of it as a strategic withdrawal. Daniel, you know the colonel wouldn't..."

"Jack would never leave us behind!" Daniel protested, his voice rising slightly.

Makepeace turned and snapped, "Get your ass in gear, Jackson. I realize you wouldn't recognize an order if you fell over it, but this time, try."

"Daniel." Sam nudged her teammate meaningfully.

Daniel bit back an angry retort and followed silently.

It was dusk as they exited the pyramid. The trek through the woods in rapidly dimming light seemed nightmarishly long, though it probably wasn't much more than half a mile in absolute terms. They were moving fast. Daniel wondered if the cryo-revival had weakened them, because even Sam was flagging more than was her wont. Neither of them complained but concentrated on staying in the middle of the Marine formation. Daniel tried to concentrate on their path. Even without the memory device, his thoughts kept turning back to Hathor. He wasn't sure which was worse- remembering Hathor's hands on his skin, or imagining her doing to Jack what she'd done to him.

They crawled up a slight incline at the edge of the clearing, and Makepeace looked through his field glasses. "No sign of my men." The Stargate almost glowed in the moonlight.

"Or the enemy," Sam said. Her voice was suspicious, and Daniel agreed. This is too easy.

Makepeace waved them forward. When nothing jumped out at them, they ran forward, trying to cross the open ground as quickly as possible. The two soldiers in the lead slammed into the force field with a faint blue sparkle and bounced back. No wonder there weren't any guards. The rest of the force flattened to the ground spinning to check the area around them.

Daniel halted with the others, Sam beside him.

Makepeace called, "Cover your flank!" Several soldiers turned obediently to the sides and rear, pointing their weapons at the trees.

In front of the gate, rings rose from the ground with their unmistakable metallic clanging.

And there are the guards, Daniel thought. Crap.

Trofsky and several guards materialized in front of the gate. They weren't firing. Daniel wondered if the force field kept them in as well as it kept the Tau'ri out. There had to be more to this. He twisted, peering into the gloom and wishing he had his glasses. In daylight he could manage reasonably well without them. After dark, one gray blur looked much like another.

Several Marines had weapons aimed at Trofsky. Makepeace yelled, "Open fire!"

What an idiot. Isn't it obvious there's something more going on? Daniel ducked with Sam as they fired into the wall. Fortunately the slight angle the Marines were firing at was enough to direct ricochets over their heads. Though not much over.

Makepeace finally turned to Sam. "What the hell is it?"

She replied readily, "It's an energy barrier. We won't penetrate it."

She must be annoyed, Daniel thought. She had omitted calling Makepeace 'sir'.

At the gate, Trofsky yelled an order to attack. Before Daniel could translate it, Makepeace was already ordering a retreat. "Fall back! Fall back!"

The other shoe dropped. Two giant towers crowned with gun emplacements rose swiftly out of the ground. The Jaffa manning them swiveled the weapons to track the fleeing humans.

Makepeace greeted this further evidence of military planning with only a slight widening of his eyes and yelled, "Into the tree line!" He led the way into the field of fire, briefly taking refuge at the base of one of the turrets before continuing toward the tree line.

The turrets discharged, lighting the darkness with orange balls of fire and earsplitting reports.

Daniel ran, staying close behind Sam, the uneven ground catching at his feet in their ill-fitting boots. Another soldier kept pace with them on Sam's other side. The explosions came closer until one blast struck near Daniel with a tremendous roar. A bolt of flame shot through his leg causing it to buckle under him. He hit the ground hard and ungracefully, his leg burning and ears ringing. He turned his head to see the other man crumpled bonelessly still on the ground.

Sam turned back. "Daniel! Daniel, let's go!"

Her voice sounded faint and tinny in his ears, and his balance was off. Carter dragged him to his feet and they stumbled toward the trees.

Up ahead, Makepeace was calling people to his position. They headed toward him, dodging unpredictably as they continued to take fire. When they reached Makepeace they could see he was waving them into a hole from which faint light was emerging. Sam pushed Daniel ahead of her. He slid in feet first and dropped.

The agony as he landed on his wounded leg made his eyes tear. The leg collapsed under him, and he rolled down the pile of sand underneath the hole, immediately struggling to his feet. He blinked to clear his vision, seeing Sam drop and descend the slope with far more grace.

Above him, he could hear Makepeace yelling, "Secure that flank, secure that flank!" A soldier dropped awkwardly into the tunnel. "Is anybody behind you?"

"No!" the man said.

"These are Tok'ra tunnels," Sam said in surprise.

Daniel listened to her and Makepeace talking about the Tok'ra operative as he examined his leg. He must have been hit by a fragment of stone thrown up when the bolt struck near him. His leg was bleeding freely from a deep cut but appeared clean. He doubled over a fold of his pants and pressed it against the wound.

Makepeace shook his head in answer to Sam's question about the identity of the Tok'ra operative. "Don't know, don't expect to find out anytime soon either." Somewhat to Daniel's surprise he glanced back. "How's the leg? Can you walk?"

Daniel stiffened at the question, straightened up and said sarcastically, "It's just a deep, bleeding gash, but it'll be fine." It wasn't up to Jack's standard, he thought wistfully.

The colonel apparently dismissed Daniel from his mind. Turning back in the direction they were headed, he reached for his radio. "Sierra Golf Six, Sierra Golf Six, this is Three Niner, come in." He and Sam walked down the tunnel, a squad scouting ahead.

Daniel turned to look at the men behind him, wishing he had a weapon. What had happened to the zat he took from the guard in the pyramid?

"They could have made the tree line," Sam suggested feebly. It was far more likely they'd been captured or killed, and everyone knew it.

Makepeace actually agreed with her, so maybe the man was more worried about his team than he was willing to admit. "Yeah, maybe."

"If we can't penetrate this barrier of theirs, maybe we can go under it," Sam suggested, walking faster.

Sounding heartened, Makepeace followed her. "It's worth a try."

Ten minutes of brisk walking carried them some distance. If Daniel wasn't mistaken in his sense of direction, they were headed perpendicular to the pyramid. Daniel wondered what there was out here that the Tok'ra wanted to access. Somewhere there must be a tunnel leading to the pyramid ship, not that they really wanted to go back.

In the dim blue light, Makepeace didn't see the energy barrier until he ran into it. He stopped with a jerk, looking closely, then backed off to let Sam examine it. She poked it gently, her hand opposed by a force equivalent to what she was exerting. The barrier sparkled with patterns like a frosted window when she touched it.

Daniel watched her gloomily, wondering what else could go wrong. "Well, I guess we can't go under it either," he said.

Sam was regarding it with interest and said, "This isn't like any Goa'uld shield we've ever come across. It's more like a solid wall. The power output for something like this must be enormous."

Daniel's eyes widened slightly as he calculated just how large an area it must be covering. Even without understanding the engineering, Sam had a point. Was there anything about this they could use?

Makepeace said curtly, "That's fascinating, Captain, but now what'll we do?"

The captain turned back to him with a calm expression. "Somehow we need to get around this barrier. Let's try the last cross-tunnel."

"Why would they leave an opening we could use to access the Stargate?" Makepeace asked. "Why wouldn't they just surround us?"

"It's possible they have," Sam said. "But the energy requirements must be prohibitive."

"But if they have--" Makepeace began.

"We'd be trapped," Daniel said impatiently. "Do you have a better idea? I know I don't."

Makepeace gave him an irritated look and waved his men back to the last cross tunnel.

#

They had found two more tunnels cut off by the energy barrier. Daniel thought they had to be running out of time. Once when they heard the tramp of armored feet down a tunnel, they had ghosted very quietly into another corridor before walking normally again.

After several more minutes of sneaking away from the Jaffa search party, Makepeace signaled everyone to stop. "Hold up, hold up," the colonel said. He stopped in an attitude of listening.

Daniel realized he must be getting something over the radio. Over the radio? Underground?

Sam's expression cleared as a look of understanding crossed her face. "The energy barrier must be amplifying the signal."

Makepeace nodded and raised the radio to his lips.

"General, this is Three Niner. We hear you, sir." A pause, and apparently they could hear him as well, because he continued with a brief report. "We have two surviving Sierra Golf Team One members, sir, but we have been cut off from the Stargate. We found cover in tunnels we presume were made by the Tok'ra, but we cannot reach the Stargate without reinforcements." Another pause, "Roger that, sir."

He lowered the radio to its pouch on his vest. "Hammond's sending reinforcements in six hours," he said.

"We should tell him about the barrier, sir--" Sam began.

"We lost contact at the end, Captain," Makepeace said.

"Ah," Sam said, looking troubled. After a brief pause, she said, "This way next, sir?"

Another hour, and they'd found three more dead ends--two cut off by the barrier and one that didn't go anywhere. Daniel checked the walls for ring controls, and turned back to see Sam doing the same on the other side.

"Anything?" she asked.

He shook his head. "That would be too easy."

Makepeace glowered in frustration and led them back to the last junction before calling a rest break. Daniel limped over to the others and sat heavily on the ground, his leg burning. He looked down to see the pants soaked with blood, crusted and sticking to the wound.

Across from him, Anderson was passing his canteen to Sam, who took a swallow and handed it back. Daniel was about to ask her if she'd pass it over, when Makepeace held out his own canteen to Daniel. Daniel accepted it with a certain sense of shame. Makepeace may have lacked imagination, and he'd never made any secret of his opinion that civilians in general and Daniel in particular didn't belong on a military team, but he wasn't a bad guy. Even Jack might have retreated under these conditions. Though in his case he'd have been determined to go back for a captured team member.

Gritting his teeth against the sting, Daniel dribbled a little of the cool water on his wounded leg before taking a long swig. Fresh blood welled up sluggishly, soaking the fabric. As he listened to Sam talk to Makepeace, he widened the hole in his pants enough to pass a bandanna around his leg and tie it tightly. He had to stop the bleeding if he was going to be able to go on.

Sam earnestly addressed Makepeace. "Sir, I've been thinking. The energy barrier extends for miles around the facility. So it must be powered from the inside, some sort of field generator." She waited to see him nod his understanding before continuing. "Now the Tok'ra use these tunnels to access the facility."

Makepeace listened intently. "They must lead to it somehow."

Sam nodded, "Right. Request permission to go back and try to shut it down."

Daniel knew perfectly well what she was thinking. Shut down the force shield, then go back for Jack. He volunteered without missing a beat, "I'll go with you." Makepeace gave him an incredulous look.

"No, Daniel, you're hurt," Sam protested.

Daniel balled a fist beside his wounded leg. She meant, "You'll slow me down." Of course she was right. He was ambulatory, but limping heavily between the leg and the ill-fitting boots. He'd never be able to keep up with the pace she would have to set. He looked away. I'm sorry, Jack.

Makepeace said, "I'll send an SG team along to back you up."

Sam leaned forward intently. "Even if I can knock out the generator, you're going to need everyone you've got to take on those towers."

Daniel the linguist could translate that one too. Sam was going back for her commanding officer, but she wouldn't risk any more lives than her own. He looked at Makepeace.

Makepeace considered this, but apparently accepted her statement at face value, nodding with only a trace of reluctance. "All right." He pulled out his nine millimeter and passed it to Daniel.

Daniel took it a little disbelievingly. Right. Machine guns versus staff weapons, and he gets a handgun? He supposed it was better than nothing.

Makepeace continued, "If you can, blow the generator just before our reinforcements come through. We'll try to take on the towers at the same time. That might give us the tactical advantage we need."

Without being asked, Anderson passed his radio over to Sam along with his equipment vest. "Good luck," Sam said, accepting it.

"We'll try to hold the door open," Makepeace said. Off in the distance, they could hear the sound of approaching Jaffa. "All right people, let's go. Move it!" He didn't bother to be especially quiet. They'd discovered the tunnels echoed to the point where it was nearly impossible to figure out where any given sound was coming from.

Sam slipped back the way they'd come, while Daniel followed the others, the gun a reassuring weight in his hand. His leg had stiffened up painfully during the rest, so it was even more of a struggle to keep up. The others were moving fast and looking ahead. Daniel tried to keep an eye out to the rear even though it slowed him even more. Anderson saw his predicament and fell back to help cover them. It was only a few minutes later, when Daniel had turned to look where he was going that a staff weapon blast lanced down the corridor, narrowly missing Daniel's shoulder.

Half the party turned to cover the rear, but Anderson was down before they could fire a shot. Daniel turned back to see if he was still alive, but the bolt had burned completely through his chest. Daniel was reaching for his gun, which was caught underneath him when Makepeace dragged him backward and around the corner.

"Go, damn it!" Makepeace yelled. "And keep your head down!"

Daniel went, forcing himself to run on his injured leg, despite the fresh trickle of blood staining his uniform. It was a running battle, now, and Daniel was soon at the back again as he struggled to keep up. He slowed when the pounding of marine boots stumbled to a halt to the accompaniment of charging staff weapons. Daniel peeked around the corner to see the others had run into a large force of Jaffa and were laying down their weapons. Daniel took two steps back to see if he could find another way out, but more warriors came up behind him.

He looked into the end of the charged staff weapon and carefully kept the pistol pointed up as he raised his hands. When he slowly laid down his weapon, he tried to convince himself that they were not utterly and completely screwed. We're just ... having a bad day, he thought, and then felt a fresh pang as he remembered who had said that and where.

Their hands were bound behind their backs, and they were marched at a brisk pace back along the tunnel they had already traversed. Daniel was finding it hard to think around the pain shooting through his leg at every step and was deeply grateful when the guards stopped for a moment and put their heads together to confer. The remainder of the unit stayed alert with weapons pointed at the Tau'ri.

"What's going on?" Captain Lewis wondered sotto voce.

"Don't know," Makepeace replied softly.

"I think they're lost," Daniel said. He couldn't catch more than a word or two, but the defensive tone was unmistakable.

"That's ridiculous," Makepeace scoffed, inadvertently raising his voice. "They're--UGH!" He grunted in pain as a staff weapon impacted his side and the guard behind them growled something in Goa'uld.

"Shut up," Daniel translated automatically. He only realized as Makepeace glared the Jaffa's order had been attributed to Daniel.

After another lengthy detour, they were marched to a surface exit. They emerged in a grove of trees in the dim early morning light. The leader of the Jaffa turned around looking carefully in every direction before leading them toward a glimmer of gold barely visible through the trees.

With sinking spirits, Daniel thought they were being taken back to Hathor, but instead, they walked nearly all the way back to the pyramid before transporting to the gate via rings. Daniel figured at least he'd get to stop walking, but even that turned out not to be a blessing, as they were forced to their knees. Daniel clenched his jaw and didn't make a sound as the agony shot through his thigh, but he couldn't stop his eyes from watering.

Once they were all arranged to his satisfaction, Trofsky, now clad in armor, paced back and forth in front of them. "Who exactly is in charge of this pathetic little expedition?" he demanded.

Not one of them answered.

Trofsky shrugged. "Then I guess I'll start shooting. I'll get to your cowardly leader one way or another." He raised his zat.

"Colonel Robert Makepeace, United States Marine Corps," Makepeace said. "I'm senior officer. And you are?"

"You will order Captain Carter to give herself up," Trofsky said.

"Eat shit and die," Makepeace returned in a matter-of-fact tone.

Daniel thought wistfully that Jack would have critiqued Makepeace's performance and gone on to demonstrate just how to torment one's captors. Of course Makepeace hadn't had nearly as much practice in Goa'uld-baiting as the members of SG-1.

Trofsky zatted Makepeace and watched him writhe on the ground in satisfaction. It must have been set to low power, because Makepeace never lost consciousness. The guards booted him back onto his knees as soon he stopped twitching.

Daniel watched to be sure they weren't going to zat him twice, before looking at the blurry line of trees and the gold shimmer of Hathor's Ha'tak visible just beyond them. Soon he'd be seeing Jack again. Only it wouldn't be Jack in the driver's seat. Daniel shut his eyes for a moment. There has to be a way out of this. Jack would never give up on us. It had been a day and a night--however long those were on this planet. They seemed plenty long to men forced to kneel in one position. Daniel had no sense of how much time passed as they waited.

Trofsky had evidently given up trying to get Makepeace to order Sam's surrender. He learned fast. He called out to the woods around them, "I know that you are still out there, Captain Carter! I grow tired of this. Surrender now, or your friends will be killed one by one."

He stopped behind Daniel, who cast a surreptitious look back. The Goa'uld was too cautious to stand close behind him though, even bound.

Daniel roughly calculated how long it was until reinforcements were due, and decided that Sam might very well be within earshot already. He called out, "Don't listen to him, Sam!"

"Silence!" Trofsky snapped. He raised his voice again. "I will give you one minute."

Daniel wished he knew what the time was. Hammond could be here any time. One minute--or five. He glanced over at Makepeace. The colonel looked back at him, a question in his eyes. Daniel shrugged minutely and tried to get a look at Makepeace's wristwatch. The colonel managed to turn it toward him, and Daniel's heart sank. At least three more minutes. He shook his head minutely, and Makepeace looked disappointed.

A flash of white caught Daniel's eye. He turned to see Jack walking down the embankment. Not Jack, he reminded himself. The Goa'uld. But it had Jack's long-legged stride, and the dirty smears on his knees were decidedly un-Goa'uldy.

Striding toward the gate, the Goa'uld called, "Jaffa, kree!"

Daniel's uncertainty grew. That didn't sound like a native speaker.

Trofsky called, "Kel'mac Goa'uld? Kree'tak?"

The reply was pure O'Neill, "You heard me, I said 'kree'!"

Daniel had no idea what could have happened, but one thing was for sure. No Goa'uld was this good an actor. And why would he be trying to act like Jack anyway? "Jack?" A split second later, he wondered if he'd ruined everything.

O'Neill gave him a jaunty wave. "Hey, guys. Makepeace, nice rescue. Good job."

Beside him Daniel could hear Makepeace give a small smothered chuckle of pure relief even as he winced at the zinger.

Trofsky screamed, "Silence!"

Daniel knew one thing. They were going to have to stop calling him the 'comeback kid'. Jack had him beat all to heck. He had no idea what his team leader was up to--until his gaze slid back to Makepeace's watch. Playing for time. Keeping Trofsky off balance until the cavalry arrived. It was pure SG-1, seat-of-the-pants improvisation as only Jack could do it. It was all Daniel could do not to fall over laughing as Jack made his pitch.

"All right, listen up," O'Neill told them. "There's something you should know before you start shooting and killing and ruining what could be the start of a beautiful friendship." He paused for effect. "Our beloved...Hathor...is dead."

Hathor dead? Well, Jack could be lying, but Daniel didn't think so.

Trofsky protested. "What you say is impossible! Hathor is a queen. More than that, she is a goddess!"

Daniel had to wonder how long the effects of whatever Hathor had used on the Jaffa would last.

Jack said, "Yeah okay, ex-goddess, maybe. I killed her myself. You should trust me on this, she's gone. She is no more. She's, well, let's face it, she's a former queen." He couldn't suppress a faint smirk, but continued more solemnly. "So why don't we just put an end to this right now?"

"We will end this with your surrender!" Trofsky said.

The chevrons on the Stargate lit up. Hammond! Jack's eyes went thoughtfully to the gate, but he didn't look surprised. He must have connected with Sam, Daniel realized.

Behind him Trofsky yelled, "Jaffa kree, chaapa-ai!" He waved his forces into defensive positions focused on the gate.

The Jaffa turned to face whatever new menace was coming through the gate. Daniel saw Jack reaching behind his back and wondered if his friend knew about the barrier. Beyond the trees, there was an immense explosion. The force shield lit up for a moment, then disappeared. The Stargate whooshed. Daniel twisted around in time to see a ship that looked more like something from Star Wars than anything he had seen in his interplanetary travels swoop out of the wormhole and blow up the first of the gun emplacements.

Jack ordered, "Get down!" as he pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and fired at Trofsky. Daniel and the others promptly hit dirt. Daniel managed to roll over in time to see a bunch of Jaffa pour out of the gate. He was baffled, but he wasn't about to look gift rescuers in the staff weapon. Then Trofsky went down, and Daniel spotted Bra'tac, which went a long way toward explaining the nature of the rescue party. He thought he had a pretty good idea who was flying that ship.

Looking around, he saw Jack get up off the ground looking dirtier than ever. Sam was crossing the clearing. The second turret was a burning torch explaining why the Jaffa were surrendering to Bra'tac.

Jack and Sam started toward him as the fighter banked and slowed, losing altitude. One of the Jaffa cut Daniel's hands free. Makepeace gave him a sullen look, and Daniel realized they'd freed him before any of the soldiers. Bra'tac's doing, no doubt.

The aircraft landed, and while Teal'c was no surprise, Hammond riding second seat certainly was. Sam had caught up with O'Neill, and they were walking across the clearing to greet them. Jack and Bra'tac clasped arms in greeting, turning to watch Teal'c's and Hammond's approach.

Teal'c looked from one to the other, wearing one of his rare quiet smiles. "My friends," he said. "I am glad to see you well."

They all paused for a moment in a half-circle, staring at one another. Sam was grinning.

Daniel couldn't smile back at his grinning friends. He was still too astounded that they were alive.

"Now that is what I call a rescue," Jack said warmly to Teal'c and his CO.

Hammond looked at the somewhat worse-for-wear condition of his flagship team. "You're a sight for sore eyes, SG-1. Let's go home."

Bra'tac and Teal'c turned back to their Jaffa troops.

Daniel watched Hammond pat Sam on the shoulder, remembering with a jolt that Hammond was an old friend of Sam's father.

"Daniel."

Daniel turned toward O'Neill. "Jack."

"There's just one thing I want to know," Jack said, slinging an arm around his shoulder as they turned toward the gate.

"What's that?" Daniel asked.

Jack reached over and touched his head. "What happened to your hair?"

"What?" Daniel reached up to feel it, only then realizing that it was quite a bit shorter than he normally wore it. "Oh. I have no idea. What's wrong with it?"

"It looks like someone hacked it off with a knife," Jack said critically. They slowed as they reached the gate. A bunch of the rescue party grinned at them but didn't interrupt.

"It's not that bad," Sam protested. She smiled at Daniel. "Though I'm sure you'll want a barber to even it up when we get back."

"Why would Hathor do that?" Daniel said. He fingered the fine strands. They actually felt uneven.

Sam patted his shoulder. "Maybe they thought that changing your hairstyle would make the idea that time had passed more plausible."

Daniel protested, "Then why only cut mine? Yours and Jack's look the same."

"Ours is shorter than yours, um, was..." Sam shrugged. "No idea, Daniel. And Hathor's not going to be answering any questions."

"Yeah, about that," Daniel said. "Is she really dead?"

"Worried about your girlfriend, Jackson?" Makepeace asked.

The group went dead silent as Daniel glared and took two steps toward Makepeace. He was so furious, he could feel the blood pounding at his temples. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded harshly.

Teal'c loomed over Makepeace, the unaccustomed Jaffa armor making his bulk look even larger. "Your words are disrespectful, Colonel."

Makepeace stood his ground. "You were the one who talked Hammond into giving her the run of the base last time. If it weren't for that, we might have stopped her the first time, and Kleiber and Adams and Anderson wouldn't be--"

"Dead?" Daniel finished for him. "I don't think so, Colonel. I wasn't the person who led them into battle against an entrenched enemy with superior numbers and better weaponry."

Makepeace flushed.

Daniel continued, "And if you'd been at the SGC when Hathor was there, instead of sipping fruity drinks at the beach on P43-2X8, maybe you'd be running around with a Jaffa pouch and one of Hathor's spawn in your belly. It's for sure you wouldn't have been so blasé about going up against her again." The memory of Jack, lying on the floor with pouch slits visible on his midriff made Daniel tense. He raised a hand to his temple, needing to be sure the memory device was really gone.

"Collect your team, Colonel," Jack ordered curtly, his eyes narrowing to a cold dark glitter. "It's time to head back."

Makepeace glowered at Daniel, before turning back to his men.

It wasn't that easy, of course. Bra'tac disappeared with the Jaffa prisoners. Makepeace insisted on retrieving the most accessible bodies.

While they waited, Daniel listened as Jack and Sam filled their teammates in on the events they had missed.

When at last they were ready to leave, they first dialed the address Teal'c provided so he could return the ship to wherever he'd gotten it.

Finally they were pushing the symbols for Earth. Hammond sent the GDO code, since SG-1 had long since been locked out, and the other SG teams were overdue as well. When at last the seventh chevron locked, Hammond waved Makepeace and SG-1 to take point, and watched as the first of his seven teams stepped into the wormhole.

Daniel stumbled coming through the gate. Grabbing the handrail for balance, he moved out of the path of the other incoming travelers. The medical team tensed at the sight of the stretchers, but the somber faces told them there would be no hurry. The medical teams relaxed a bit when they saw there were no serious injuries amongst the survivors. Daniel couldn't help limping as he came down the ramp. "It's not serious," he told Janet. "Just a cut."

Her eyes had gone from him back to the wormhole. "Are...?"

"We're all fine," Daniel said. "At least those of us who made it back."

The room was rapidly filling with SG personnel. Hammond, Bra'tac and O'Neill were the last to step out onto the ramp. The doctor carefully scanned the group, an expression of relief washing over her face when she saw there were no serious injuries. Her gaze went back to the dark stains on Daniel's fatigue pants and the makeshift bandage around his thigh.

Daniel lowered his voice even as the noise level went up. "Um, Janet."

"What is it, Daniel?" She tugged him toward a gurney, which he resisted.

"No, um, I can walk, J-Janet," he stumbled over her name. "Jack was Goa'ulded."

"What?!" Janet looked at him sharply, then turned to see O'Neill, talking to his CO, Bra'tac and Teal'c.

"They froze him before the symbiote could take over," Daniel hastened to add. "So it's dead, but?"

"Froze him?" she asked.

Daniel nodded. "Cryogenically. Well, they did it to all of us, but Jack got frozen twice. Uh, once after we were captured, the second time by the Tok'ra to kill the symbiote."

She looked from O'Neill to him and back, going a little pale, but nodded gamely. "Thank you for telling me. Now..."

"Get to the infirmary," Daniel finished for her with a tiny smile. The first smile he'd found all this endless day. To think hours ago he'd believed this was gone, the people he knew all dead.

He limped slowly to the infirmary and sat stoically through the cleaning and stitching of his leg wound, watching the familiar chaos. Janet bustled back and forth, trying to be three places at once. Jack was herded into a bed and evidently told to stay there.

Daniel could see him arguing from across the room and relaxed fractionally. When Jack stopped arguing was the time to worry...

Janet came over as the nurse finished taping a bandage over his leg. She glanced at the chart and raised her eyebrows. "'Just a cut', Daniel? Eighteen stitches, and it was pretty deep. That's going to scar."

Daniel blinked at her and tried to joke. "Fortunately I'd already decided to give up miniskirts."

She smiled and shook her head. "I should know you better by now."

"How are Jack and Sam?" Daniel asked.

Janet laid a hand on his shoulder. "Considering what you've all been through, you're all in remarkably good shape." Her eyes went to his face and she turned his chin to look at the side of his forehead. "All three of you have this strange puncture on your temple though.."

"Oh." Daniel blinked. "I almost forgot." He grabbed his discarded fatigue pants and fished the small bloodied instruments out of the pockets. "They put these things on us. They picked up our memories, somehow, and broadcast them on a screen."

Janet found a clear plastic bag and let him deposit them into it. She looked closely at the small devices, eyes widening at the sharp little points on the back. She looked back at Daniel's chart. "I see you haven't received an MRI yet. We'll make sure to get a good look at your head then. Is there anything else you might have forgotten to mention?"

Daniel winced. "Um, I did tell you we were all drugged?"

Janet laughed. "No, but we were going to do blood tests anyway." She made some notes on his chart. "I want you to stay here until after we've had a chance to look at your MRI, okay?"

"Then I can go home?" Daniel asked hopefully.

"Then we'll decide whether you can stay in your quarters on base or whether I want to monitor you more closely for a day or two," Janet said firmly.

Daniel didn't try to argue; he hadn't really expected to be allowed to leave the base today.

Janet's eyebrows went up again at the lack of resistance. "Okay, I'll be back to see you in a little while."

#

They debriefed in the infirmary, out of deference to Janet's desire to monitor the ongoing disintegration of the dead Goa'uld in the back of Jack's neck. Daniel could see the tension ratchet up a notch in his friend whenever the creature was mentioned, but he delivered a cool, even clinical description of the implantation.

"It burrowed into my neck, but the ice was already affecting it," Jack reported. "The Tok'ra told me to fight it. It was weakening even before I passed out." The involuntary shudder rippling through his shoulders told Daniel that it hadn't been nearly that easy. He stared at his hands, imagining an enormous snake slithering over Sha're's creamy skin, striking at her neck.

Janet took over the meeting at that point to show them the results of the MRIs. "The Goa'uld is dead, and already being absorbed into Colonel O'Neill's system," she reported.

A look of intense disgust crossed Jack's face.

"Will the Colonel be able to use Goa'uld devices now?" Sam asked curiously. Daniel knew that the ability to use the alien technology unsettled Sam as much as it fascinated her.

"It's a bit soon to say," Fraiser said calmly, "But I think not. As best I can tell, the Goa'uld never integrated with the Colonel's nervous system, and never released any naquada into his blood stream. We still don't entirely understand how the naquada is introduced, but it is key to the mental control they exercise over their technology."

She zoomed in on the MRI of the brain on the screen. "Speaking of which, the devices Daniel brought back were very interesting."

Sam, Jack, Teal'c and Hammond leaned forward to see the computer screen while Daniel leaned against a bed. "The MRIs show tiny filaments extending into the areas of the brain that control memory from the point where the probes were inserted," Janet said. "Apparently they break off when the probe is removed, and the MRIs show that what remains is already being broken down by the body. It seems to be the way they are designed to work."

"So they haven't caused any damage?" Sam asked.

"None I can detect," Fraiser told her. "The blood work shows you all have a lot of medication in your systems."

"A sedative, I think," Jack said. "And something to make us more talkative."

She nodded. "I'd like to keep Dr. Jackson and Colonel O'Neill overnight. Their levels are still quite high. Sam seems to have nearly metabolized it already, but I'd like all three of you to stay on base for the next forty-eight hours."

Jack rolled his eyes and made token protests, but Daniel thought that he was probably so glad to be back on Earth he wouldn't have objected to a bed in the holding cell.

As for himself--well, he was tired. Tired enough to sleep anywhere, even the infirmary. His head was throbbing, and he didn't think it was from the physical effects of the device.

Hammond had evidently debriefed the rescue team while waiting for SG-1's somewhat lengthier medical exams and identity verification. After the crystal entity and robot incidents, they'd gotten a lot more careful about taking returning team members at face value. When the meeting convened, it consisted of just Hammond, Fraiser and SG-1.

Daniel listened as first Jack and then Sam related how they had awakened and the story Trofsky had fed them.

Daniel was grateful to be last, allowing him to omit the repetitive details. "Well, they told me basically the same thing. When they got to the interrogation, they asked me about the system lords we had met. I was a bit surprised that they were asking, but they said they'd lost a lot of records in an attack on Earth."

He frowned, remembering. "I should have been more suspicious. When I started asking questions, they increased the dosage of whatever they were feeding me."

"It was a sufficiently farfetched scheme, Doctor, that it surprises me it occurred to any of you to be suspicious," Hammond said reassuringly, with a glance at his second in command.

Jack shrugged modestly and produced a reasonable facsimile of his usual smug grin.

Daniel was pretty sure Hammond and Fraiser were just as conscious as his teammates that Jack was minimizing his fear and concern. "Anyway," Daniel continued, "When I got to Hathor--" He broke off. "Um, well, the memory device brought back a lot of things I never really remembered before. Hathor turning Jack into a Jaffa, for example."

"You just remembered that?" Jack asked,

Daniel gave him a surprised look. "You knew I didn't remember it before. I told you."

"I know that's what you said," Jack admitted, "but the rest of us got our memories back. I figured you did too but didn't want to talk about it."

"Oh." Daniel looked away, toward the camera in the corner of the room. They'd put them in after Hathor, he remembered. Thank god he hadn't had to watch himself with her in living color. Nor could anyone else. He didn't let his calm expression waver. "No, that wasn't it. I think I didn't want to remember." He turned back to the general and redirected the conversation. "I tried to avoid letting the device draw me into any more flashbacks, and started asking questions. So they sedated me again until Jack and Sam woke me up--you know the rest," he finished.

Hammond glanced down at the crabbed notes on his pad. "Tell us what happened after Captain Carter went back to Hathor's ship."

Daniel was a little puzzled. "We kept looking for a way out of the Tok'ra tunnels. Before we found one, the Jaffa found us and managed to surround us. They dragged us around the complex a couple of times and finally found a way out. We were marched back to the ship and ringed to the gate."

Hammond nodded and made a few more notes. Daniel had the feeling he was missing something, but couldn't imagine what. Hammond dismissed the briefing, and Janet ordered Jack and Daniel back to their beds.

#

Once the last of the rescue party had passed their physicals, the infirmary quieted down. Daniel lay against his pillow, finding it utterly amazing that SG-1 had all made it. Not that everyone did. Three SG team members dead to rescue the three members of SG-1. It didn't sound like much of a trade to him.

"You okay, Daniel?" Jack asked suddenly.

"What?" Daniel said. "Oh, I'm fine."

"Why didn't you tell Hammond about Makepeace?" Jack asked him.

Daniel gave him a puzzled look. "Tell him what?"

"I heard you didn't get along too well during the rescue," Jack said.

"He's a brave man," Daniel said. "I heard he volunteered to come after us. He didn't have to do that."

"But you don't like him," Jack prompted.

"I don't dislike him," Daniel evaded. "We just don't have a lot in common."

"And?"

"And I had a problem with just walking away and leaving you back there," Daniel admitted softly.

"Ah." That stopped Jack cold.

After a brief silence, Daniel decided it was time to float an idea that had been nagging him ever since he'd seen Hathor's version of the SGC. "I've been thinking."

"What, again?"

"I think Hathor had help."

"What?!" Jack said.

"I don't see how she could have gotten everything she did from her visit here, Jack. I mean, things didn't just look right, but the materials were right. The weapons locker in the 'gate room' was sheet metal."

"How else could she have found out?"

"She could have captured someone from Earth. Used her pheromones on them, and they'd have told her anything." I should know.

"We aren't missing any personnel," Jack said.

"The NID are," Daniel pointed out.

Jack's eyes widened, and he suddenly started looking a lot more concerned. "That's an- interesting-idea, Daniel," he said slowly. "Did you just think of this now?"

Daniel shrugged. "It occurred to me during the debrief, but I wanted to think it through before I said anything. I didn't recognize any of her people as the ones we saw in Utah. And besides, if Hathor had some of them, why would she have needed us to tell her about the system lords? That's the part of my theory that makes no sense."

"Not necessarily," Jack said slowly. "If the NID were taking operational security really seriously, they might not have told their field operatives everything we know."

Daniel blinked. "What if they ran into trouble? That kind of knowledge could save their lives."

Jack just looked at him with the closed blank stare that always seemed to accompany thoughts of his days in covert operations.

After a long silence, Jack said. "But that's not what's really bothering you."

Daniel said, "How about you, Jack? How are you doing?"

"I'm still cold," Jack said lightly, letting the subject go. "I feel like a popsicle. Grape, if we're being picky."

Daniel turned his head to look over at Jack. The restoration of his glasses made his friend's face sharp and clear. There were lines Daniel was sure hadn't been there a month ago. "Today was a roller coaster ride," Daniel said slowly. "One of the ones with a bunch of loops in the middle, so you feel like you've left your stomach behind when it's over. First everyone's dead, then they're not, we're free, we're captured, you're a Goa'uld, then you're not."

"Let's get one thing straight, Daniel. I was never a Goa'uld. No naquada, no sharing, nothing," Jack said firmly.

"Okay, you were almost a Goa'uld," Daniel said.

Jack winced. "And can we please not talk about it?" He finally fell asleep, leaving Daniel alone.

Daniel listened to the slight restlessness that told him it wasn't necessarily good rest. Daniel was exhausted himself. The freezing had been tiring, and the long day and night and day that had followed had offered little opportunity to relax, even if the pain in his leg would have let him. Safely home, with medication dulling the pain, he was finally able to doze. His eyes started to close, only to snap open abruptly as he saw the dorsal fin of a Goa'uld slide over the end of Jack's bed.

Daniel jerked violently, mouth open to yell when he realized that he'd slipped over the edge of a dream. Wasn't real, wasn't real, wasn't real ... he repeated the mantra silently. It was a pretty good indication of how much rest he was going to get if he closed his eyes right now. Resolutely, he pushed the covers aside and slipped silently off his bed, prepared to head in the direction of the bathroom if Jack stirred. When the other man continued to snore gently, he limped out of the infirmary and went up to his office.

It looked much as it had when he'd left it, except for the light layer of dust that had settled on his keyboard. He looked at his mug longingly. He was cold, but drinking coffee at this hour was probably a bad idea. He rinsed out the coffeepot and a mug and ran a pot of hot water for cocoa.

Once he settled with his cup, he realized that most of the recent work he'd been doing was gone. The translation for SG-9, the pottery that SG-11 had brought back, the photos of wall inscriptions from SG-5. When SG-1 hadn't returned, they must have been reassigned to other people. Honestly, he was a little surprised that his office had remained relatively untouched. Daniel blew the dust off the keyboard but didn't turn the machine on. He was grateful that after the sarcophagus episode he'd converted all his bills to automatic payment. His fish were probably dead, but at least his bills were paid.

"You're thinking deep thoughts," Janet said from the door.

He looked guiltily at her. "Um, sorry, I just had to..."

"To?"

"To see that it was still here. Real. After what they told us," Daniel said. He eyed the doctor speculatively. She didn't look as annoyed as she usually did when he sneaked out of her infirmary. "Cocoa?" he offered.

She chuckled. "Bribery and corruption, Daniel? This time, I think we'll let it pass. Especially since I could really use some chocolate about now."

He washed another cup and poured hot water over cocoa powder, stirring it with a pen. "It'll taste a bit like coffee," he warned her. "From the pot."

She accepted the steaming mug with a murmured thank you, and sat down on his couch.

"I feel like I owe you an apology," Fraiser said carefully, looking at him over the cup.

Daniel looked back with genuine puzzlement. "Whatever for?"

Janet watched him closely. "I should have insisted you see someone after Hathor, ah?"

"Assaulted me?" Daniel filled in steadily. He didn't try to avoid her gaze. "I wouldn't have thanked you for it at the time."

"And now?" she prodded.

"And now I'd thank you for caring, but I'd still rather not," Daniel replied. He turned to the bookshelf and picked up a small clay statue, setting down his cup to turn it over in his hands. "It was a year ago, Janet. I survived."

"You just remembered it yesterday," Janet pointed out.

Daniel was grateful there had been no need to describe the scenes triggered by the memory device in detail. Hammond wanted to know everything they had told Hathor in case one of her Jaffa had escaped with the intelligence. But Hathor had already lived through the things he remembered about her, so there was no new exposure. He shrugged slightly. "And it still happened a year ago. I can manage."

Daniel cast about for a change of subject, putting down the statue to warm his hands on the cup, and sat beside Janet on the couch. "I can't believe we made it back," he said. "When I thought we'd really been frozen all those years, and everyone here was gone..." His eyes stung and he looked away, wishing he'd said something different.

Janet waited without pressuring him, sipping the chocolate.

"It was, uh, bad," Daniel finished softly.

"We've been worried about you guys too," Janet said. "I can't tell you how grateful I am that I could call Cassie this afternoon and tell her you were all safe."

"How's she doing?" Daniel asked, listening with real pleasure to the details of Cassie's doings.

Janet finally ran down, smiling. "Oh," she said after a moment. "I forgot to mention that we fed your fish."

Daniel looked up in surprise. "Oh. Thank you."

"Cassie's idea," Janet admitted.

"What's Cassie's idea?" Sam asked from the door.

"Hi Sam," Daniel said.

Janet asked, "What are you doing up?"

Sam gave Janet a guilty look. "I couldn't sleep."

Daniel said peaceably, "Have some cocoa."

Sam made a cup for herself and then paused in front of the coffee machine. "Would you like some, Teal'c? Sir? Cocoa, I mean?"

Daniel looked up in time to see his Jaffa friend and the general coming through the door.

Teal'c nodded and accepted the cup she handed him while Hammond said, "Thank you, Captain." He looked around at the quiet gathering. "What are you all doing here at this hour?"

"We could ask you the same question, sir," Janet Fraiser said.

A small smile crossed Hammond's face, as he and the doctor exchanged an understanding glance.

Daniel realized with a pang of surprise and gratitude that they'd been sincerely worried and had needed to check up on SG-1 to reassure themselves they were really back.

"We're grateful to be alive, sir," Daniel said. "Even if you shouldn't have done it."

Hammond gave him a sharp look. "We don't leave our people behind, Doctor."

"Three dead," Daniel said quietly. "It could have been a lot worse. Almost was a lot worse."

Hammond shook his head. "That's not how it works, son."

"Did my party invitation get lost in the mail?" Jack O'Neill asked from the door. "Daniel, close only counts in horseshoes."

"And hand grenades?" Daniel added, completing the phrase he'd heard Jack use a number of times.

Jack sighed. "Yeah, them too."

Sam winced.

Daniel was sure she was remembering the two gun emplacements firing on the SGC personnel as they scattered.

"It's an unwritten rule, Daniel," Jack said. "When we ask people to do something as insanely dangerous as gate travel, they have to know we'll do whatever we can to back them up."

"I didn't order any of those people through the gate, son," Hammond said gently. "I asked for volunteers. And not one stepped back."

Daniel looked down into his empty cup. "I guess I just don't know what to say. Except thank you."

"I don't know why you find this so difficult to grasp, Daniel," Jack said dryly. "Coming from a man who argued with the rescue party while under fire because they were leaving his teammate behind."

Daniel flushed. "That was..."

"...different?" Jack said.

"...uh, the same, actually. I guess." Daniel realized with some surprise that perhaps he and Makepeace had something in common after all. Even if the soldier was never likely to recognize it.

Jack accepted a cup of chocolate from his second in command and nudged Daniel to make some room for him on the couch, while Hammond seated himself comfortably in Daniel's chair.

"So," Jack said, looking around. "Did we miss anything exciting?"

"We quarantined the base for a week to contain an outbreak of flu," Fraiser said. "Fever, vomiting, chills."

"Glad I missed it," Jack said. "Not what I had in mind."

"I have seen several advertisements for an upcoming movie starring Keanu Reeves, O'Neill, which I would like to experience."

As his friends started catching up on current events, Daniel sank back into the couch, still feeling bone-weary but somewhat lighter of heart. The bits and pieces of memories still floating back were horrible, but they were also something he'd survived months ago. And Jack was better, despite the occasional tremors quivering through him as he sat wedged beside Daniel. He needed the warmth, Daniel realized. Being frozen twice in one day had to have been hard on him. But he was still Jack, not an unwilling body enslaved to a malevolent mind. Daniel reached back for the blanket on the back of the couch. "I'm cold," he said blandly at Jack's defensive look.

"Oh, in that case..." Jack helped him spread the blanket across both their laps. As his friends continued to chatter, Daniel tipped his head back against the back of the couch, at last relaxing into sleep. If any nightmares came, his friends would wake him.

*end

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