Perspective

by Glacis 

Daniel Jackson's new path led him to amazing discoveries, knowledge unlike anything he'd dreamed about even in his wildest fantasies, and abilities that expanded the horizon of his being into infinity. But no matter where his path took him, a tiny tendril of consciousness remained on Earth, watching over his family.

What he saw dismayed him, but he could do nothing to help. The cohort of the Ascended had made that perfectly clear. All he could do was watch, comfort as best he could, and hope for a miracle.

When it came, he thought it was a cosmic joke. He supposed it was all a matter of perspective.

Sam stared at the readouts and wondered, vaguely, why she should give a tinker's damn. There were hints in the carvings along the walls that showed in the recon photos, sure, but it wasn't her area of expertise, and Jonas, for all his enthusiasm, wasn't Daniel ... her eyes blurred and it took her a moment to realize it wasn't fatigue. It was tears.

Again.

Growling under her breath, she fought to regain control of herself and pushed through the pain. The general had said she had to learn to live with it, and he would know from his own experience it was easier to say than do. Teal'c had his rituals and his certainty of Daniel's glory to bring him what comfort he could.

Colonel O'Neill made stupid-assed jokes and told her to get over it.

Maybe he thought tough love was the best way to go. Maybe it was the only way he could deal with it, by not dealing with it, and thought she should too. Maybe he thought she was too much of a geek and a woman to suck it up in the good ol' USAF tradition and soldier on. She'd thought he was past that bullshit.

She'd thought he loved Daniel, too.

She guessed she was wrong about a lot of things.

The telephone rang, startling her, and she picked it up, still staring at the glyphs and wondering what the hell they said -- warning? Blessing? Instruction manual?

"Carter, meet us in the briefing room. We have a go."

"Yes, sir," she replied woodenly. She hung up, ignoring the silence between them that had been growing in the weeks since Daniel ... left.

Once seated at the colonel's left, in her usual seat, she found herself spacing out, staring at the seat that should be Daniel's, and at Jonas, perching on the edge like an overeager new recruit. She'd been doing it more and more often. Couldn't seem to keep a lid on it. Wasn't Jonas' fault, she knew, but her heart wasn't in the mood to listen to more logic. She'd been force-fed logic since she was a teenager, since her mother died. It hadn't done a single frigging thing for her then, and wasn't doing a single frigging thing for her now.

"Major!"

The general's stern voice brought her out of the fugue of memories. Daniel and her mom and her own Jonas, four years dead on a faraway planet, and Martouf, a more recent loss. A whole litany, and not a damned thing she could do about any of it. Feeling as if she carried a lead weight on her shoulders, she stood, walked to the front of the briefing room, and began her slides.

When the colonel made a third crack about Jimmy Neutron, she nearly fed him her pointer. Ass end first. Before her temper could flare, it sputtered out. Didn't matter, after all.

None of it did.

"No sir, that was a cartoon." She turned back to the slide, specs from a ruined power generator on P4S832. "There are anomalous energy readings coming from the-"

"I knew that," the colonel muttered just loudly enough to interrupt her.

"Yes, sir," she agreed with rigid disinterest, and continued, "coming from the buried chambers in the east and northeast quadrants."

"It was a joke," the colonel protested.

Sam looked from the tiny red dot of the laser pointer on the screen, to Jack O'Neill's face, and nodded. Once. She didn't smile. "Yes, sir." Then she continued laying out the mission specs. The consummate professional.

He didn't make any more jokes during her briefing. Two days later they returned from the planet, Jonas' right arm in a field dressing. He was still swearing, a little desperately, that he'd get the translation right next time. Sam glanced over at the burn marks from the booby-trapped generator that were healing on Teal'c's hands, then turned to go to the infirmary and have her own injuries seen to. The colonel fell into step with her.

"Um, you okay, Carter?"

She didn't bother looking at him. "Yes, sir."

"Are you ever going to say anything to me besides geek gobbledy gook and yes, sir?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. She wasn't joking, and it showed. Beside her, he sighed. She could feel his eyes on her, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Ah, hell, I'm no good at this," he blurted.

Pausing at the door to the infirmary, she finally looked at him. He flinched. She had no idea what he saw in her eyes, and couldn't care less if she tried.

"Yes, sir," she agreed, then walked over, sat on a bed, and waited for Janet to come stitch her up.

It hurt.

She was getting used to it.

She didn't used to be like that. Jack stared through the door until Janet closed the curtain, really not liking the way Carter stared off into space like some kind of zombie. She'd been doing it more and more since Daniel ... she'd been doing it more and more. Started the first night they all went out to dinner after they'd got Thor back. She'd drifted off during a heated discussion he and Teal'c were having -- okay, so maybe hockey wasn't her idea of a good time, but usually she'd tease him about it, her and Daniel ...

He cut off the train of thought before it could go any further. Daniel had made his decision, and he knew from the affectionate ruffling of his and Sam's hair that Daniel was still hanging around keeping track of them. He considered, for about a second, letting Sam and Teal'c know what that glitch in the air conditioning had meant, but they'd think he was loony, and he couldn't blame them.

From what he could tell, he was the only one Daniel ever appeared to. Which was weird, in a way, because Teal'c was the spiritual one and Sam was as close to him as a sister, so it didn't make a lot of sense that Danny didn't show his glowing face to them at least once. Then again, all of it was pretty weird, so he tried not to think about it.

It just kept popping up in his mind. Maybe it was because Daniel was his best friend. There weren't many people Jack would allow to call him a stupid son of a bitch when he had a loaded P-90 in his hands. Maybe it was because Daniel, for all his arguing and generally being a pain in the ass, did trust Jack to make the tough decisions. He wasn't sure anybody else would be able to tell Jacob to stop trying to heal him. Daniel wasn't the first mortally injured friend Jack had watched die.

He was the first one to turn into a glowing white ball of light with tentacles and float away. Had to admit, that was new. Jack leaned against the corridor wall and waited for Sam to come out. He and Carter had to have a talk, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

She marched out of the infirmary holding her left arm stiff to her side. Shoulder must have been hurting like a bitch. Falling slabs of razor-sharp rock landing on a body would do that. He opened his mouth to call her over to her side.

Totally blank blue eyes looked right through him. He felt the words die on his tongue.

He watched her walk away and reconsidered his strategy. Her emotional numbness was expected. It wasn't affecting her performance in the field, only her personal relationship with himself. He'd give her some time. Some distance. Let her come to terms with the loss in her own way.

If she started fucking up off-world, he'd call her on it. Until then, he'd keep an eye on her. The last thing he wanted to land on her was a reprimand, even if it was just a word in her ear. The way she'd been acting later he had a bad feeling it would take something stronger to get through to her right now, and there was no way in hell he wanted to make his reservations official. She had enough on her plate.

"Oh, Daniel," he said softly, "what a fucked-up bunch we are without you." The tiniest breeze ruffled his hair, and he smiled softly. They'd get through it.

After all, they had a guardian angel on their team.

Teal'c sank deeper into his trance, allowing the symbiote time to heal his body and allowing his mind freedom to wander. The last several days had been difficult. Samantha Carter had voiced many of the thoughts he kept closest to his heart at the loss of one of his greatest friends, and while Teal'c knew that Daniel Jackson had attained well-deserved glory, a corner of his heart reserved for hopeless wishes pulled at him. He missed his friend.

As they all did. Each grieved in his own particular manner. Colonel O'Neill bore his loss with stoicism and reserve, befitting a commander, and pain, befitting a friend. Samantha Carter cloaked herself in a mantle of sorrow, submerging her pain in her work, and withdrawing to a private place within herself to begin the long journey toward healing. General Hammond held his pain close to his chest as armor, suffering showing only in the depths of his eyes and the thread in his voice. Others mourned as well, Doctor Frasier in her anger and frustration, Jacob in his quiet acceptance, even Jonas, in redeeming his honor.

Teal'c kept his grief in his deepest heart, and brought it out only now, in the darkness of his quarters, lit by candles and memories. Surfacing slowly from his kel-no-reem, he prepared for the Ritual of Remembrance.

Chanting softly in his native tongue, a song of celebration for the life that was and blessing on the way ahead, Teal'c brought forth cherished memories of his friend. Each shone in his mind like a jewel, lit from within by the warm heart, great courage, and shining spirit of Daniel Jackson. The song continued as the memories flowed forth.

Daniel Jackson sacrificing the possibility of saving his wife in order to free Teal'c, by destroying Thor's Hammer. Defending Teal'c in the Cor-Ai, forcing Teal'c to see himself as his friend saw him, forcing him to forgive himself for unforgivable acts. He and his friend dealing with Machallo's legacy.

Daniel Jackson forgiving him for the death of Sha'ure, as he had for her taking in the beginning. His friend's quiet support over the loss of Shan'auc. The memory of his friend's voice as he sat by Teal'c's side through m'al sharran, the ritual of rediscovery, as Teal'c regained his knowledge of self, stolen from him by the false god Apophis.

So many times when he thought that Daniel Jackson was lost to them forever, and each time he had returned.

Until the last.

Singing Daniel Jackson's soul on his final journey to Kheb, Teal'c extinguished the last candle and sat in the darkness, remembering the light in his friend's soul, giving thanks that it would not be extinguished. Giving praise that somewhere, beyond the boundary of this world, Daniel Jackson lived on, and the universe was greatly enriched by it.

It did not assuage his grief, but it leavened it. His loss was a burden he would bear, in the dark and in the candlelight, for as long as memory endured.

Completing the ritual, he rose and walked to the briefing room, to prepare for the next mission. As he seated himself at the table and felt the emptiness across from him where Daniel Jackson used to be, Teal'c took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The comfort of knowing his friend had gone to a better place was in truth little comfort after all. A breeze caressed his brow, and for a moment he felt a presence. It was gone too quickly to capture, and he dismissed the feeling. His heart might make all the wishes it would, but the truth was undeniable.

The briefing began, as the newest member of the team rose and began to present his findings. Teal'c stared at Jonas. His expression remained thoughtful, his eyes calm, but he found himself desperately wishing for a different man standing in front of the long black table, enthusing about ancient cultures and long-dead languages.

He accepted the fierce longing, then locked it away in his heart. He would do what had to be done, for as long as needed, and honor those who had sacrificed everything along the way. They ... he ... truly deserved glory.

It was very little comfort, indeed.

The tether Daniel kept attached to his family on Earth tugged him harder and harder, until he found himself moving from one to the other to the other, impotent anger growing in his heart. He knew, at the center of his being, that he could not interfere. There were few rules that came with his new state of being, but non-interference was primary. It kept delusions of godhood to a minimum.

Still, even knowing there was nothing he could do, he had to do something. Drifting through time and space to a mother ship sailing much too close to Earth, he felt a familiar energy emanating from it. Coalescing near enough to identify the source, he had a bare instant to take in the details before a scream of rage howled through the distance between them.

It was enough.

He dissipated at the speed of thought, but was still caught in the backlash of killing energy. It took him some time before he fully regained consciousness, of the sort to which he'd become accustomed since ascending, and for the first time since he'd left his corporeal body behind, he felt pain.

At the center and to the foundation of his soul.

Oma's words echoed through him. The universe is so large, and we are so very small. The only thing we can do is choose whether we will be good or evil.

Now he knew what evil felt like.

Moving as quickly as he could, feeling paralyzed by the blow he'd sustained but determined to do what he had to do, Daniel made his way to Oma's side. He reached out a hand to take hers, to blend their energy, and in an instant she saw what he had seen, felt what he had felt. Daniel felt her recoil, her instinctive denial and instant understanding, followed by a dissonance he'd never felt from her.

His other hand came to take hers, and he leaned forward until he could shelter in her greater light. She absorbed his confusion, his anger, and he absorbed her calm, her acceptance. They shared their pain.

Through her, then gradually through his own consciousness, he felt a spark that encompassed every ascended soul, great and small, through the vastness of the universe. It grew, as reaction rippled through it, as the cohort of the Ascended embraced the connection and drew all its members in.

Once again, suffused now through the multitude of souls, Daniel felt the touch of pure evil. It rose, a stark blot against the light, then shrank away. Gradually, the intensity of the connection diffused, until once again Daniel stood beside Oma, the two of them as alone as possible for an Ascended.

"He is one of us," Daniel said softly, urgently.

"He sought protection for his people, those left behind. He ignored the path, in his solitude and desperation, and snuffed the candle he sought to light," she agreed. Her eyes looked far away. Daniel couldn't see everything she could, but what he saw was enough.

"He took a Goa'uld up on its offer of power, to try to save his people, and it poisoned him! Now he's taking down the Asgard, killing off the Tollan, taking out the Tok'ra, and any time now, he's going to destroy Earth. I can't let him do it!"

He squeezed her hands, a physical representation of his touch that was but a shadow of the true touch between them. She smiled sadly at him, her touch moving through him, trying to soothe him, but failing. He was too agitated to be comforted.

"He broke the primary law. If you interfere, you will do the same. He will be dealt with, but we cannot interfere with the Goa'uld, and if he is punished as he now is, the Goa'uld will die."

"How is this a bad thing?" Daniel blurted.

Oma shook her head. "It is not our place to play God," she admonished him.

"But he is!" Daniel protested. "By not stopping him, by allowing him to continue, we're letting him literally get away with murder!"

"And you would stop this by committing murder?" Before he could give his instinctive response, she raised a hand. "Think, Daniel. The rivers run from different sources, but they are all the waters of life."

"Right," he sighed. "The Goa'uld chose to be evil. We chose to be good. By killing the Goa'uld we'd be taking an action that might be construed as evil."

She gave him a considering look.

"All right, would be evil, in the 'all life forms are equal' ideal. But we made the mess," he insisted stubbornly. "And we have to fix it. Or a whole lot of innocent lives will be lost, including several old friends of mine. Inaction in this case is as evil as action would be!"

She nodded slowly. "The universal conundrum."

"What can I do? Since I can't go hunt Anubis down and kill him myself." Much as he'd like to, Daniel thought, and knew Oma heard it.

For an instant there was perfect stillness, and Daniel felt himself pulled into a meeting of millions of minds. In the moment between one heartbeat and the next, debate was held, ideals put forth, reality shifted ... and they came to a decision.

Feeling a little dizzy, Daniel stared at Oma. She smiled at him.

"The heat of the sun may be felt even in the shade. The answer is within yourself. Your choice is simple: return to the path from whence you came, or find a mirror through which the truth may shine."

Daniel stared at her, sorting through the threads of meaning woven within her words. He could descend, show his friends what he knew, and fight beside them.

Or he could find another way. Keep the advantage he had at being on the same plane of existence as Anubis. Funnel information to his friends and yet not directly interfere. The Ascended who fell into evil took a Goa'uld into partnership. Daniel had more limited options. He could only rely on himself.

Drawing back from Oma's warmth, Daniel reached out, and found a way.

Daniel watched the Stargate close behind the survivors of SG-1, his entire body shaking with exhaustion. In the past twenty four hours, he'd been married, killed, revived, taken prisoner, tortured, killed again, revived, widowed, and left behind.

Only the last one of those had been his choice.

Walking slowly past Kasuf, chanting over the bodies of the dead, he walked further into the ruined temple. Sha'ure lay where the staff blast caught her, crumpled on the stone steps of the Stargate. He gathered her body to him gently, feeling the tears fill his eyes as he whispered the words of blessing remembered from his early childhood in Cairo. The last time he'd sung those words they'd been for his father. He'd been eight years old.

Twenty years hadn't made a difference. They still came to his tongue with ease, lifting the burden that had barely begun to settle. He'd known her such a short time, but he could have loved her in a way he'd never loved anyone.

Now he'd never get the chance.

When the rituals were concluded, after a long night of crying to the heavens for the losses they sustained, dawn broke harshly over the desert land. Feeling more at home on Abydos than he ever had on Earth, Daniel buried his wife in the tomb with the Stargate, covered in rocks so that no more false gods could come through. As far as Earth was concerned, Abydos was destroyed.

He liked it that way.

Captain Doctor Sam Carter stared up at the Stargate, frustration wrinkling her brow. For the last few days it had been giving off anomalous energy readings, almost as if it were alive but in hibernation. She didn't know what to make of it.

When she'd washed out of the astronaut training program, it had been a blessing in disguise. Her father had been surprisingly good about it, but she'd been incredibly disappointed. Until a lady named Catherine came to her, and asked her if she'd like to take a look at the future.

In the year since then, she'd been in theoretical heaven. Everything from the power source to the base materials of the Stargate fascinated her. If she occasionally got claustrophobic spending all her time inside a mountain with only a skeleton staff, it was more than balanced out by the discoveries she was making. Smiling, humming under her breath, she approached the computer console to the side of the ramp and checked the readings once more.

The ramp shuddered as the Gate trembled. Sam looked up in shock as the chevrons began to spin on their own. An event horizon formed with a whoosh as four SPs fell through the door, P-90s at the ready.

"What the --!"

She didn't get the chance to finish the question before a bunch of strange bald guys in skirts came running through the Gate, shooting some kind of weird energy tube. Two of the SPs went down fast, a third was injured, all before Sam could pry herself away from the bizarre readings on the computer and reach for a P-90, lying on the floor next to the body of one of the dead airmen.

Before her hands closed around it, metal claws clamped around her waist and lifted her completely off her feet. She looked wildly up into cold eyes in a dark, expressionless face, topped off with a gold emblem in the middle of his forehead. Behind her, she heard the last of the SPs fall, but most clearly, she heard the stranger say, "She will do well. Jaffa! Kree!"

Then for the first time she plunged through a wormhole.

Into hell.

Life had settled into a pattern, and Daniel was quietly happy in a way he'd never been. Excavations on other parts of the ruins led him to what appeared to be a huge map of the galaxy, and what looked like a system of Stargates. Once in awhile he had the urge to dig up the gate and call through to Earth, wanting to share what he'd found with Jack. But Jack had retired, and there wasn't anyone else in the military Daniel would trust with his find.

Deciding the time had come to leave the past behind, he recruited Skaara to come with him exploring the inner chambers of the ruined temple. He had his journals, he had his tools, and he had his curiosity. He had a family, for the first time since he was a child. He was content.

Several months after he'd begun translations of the cartouche within the serdab, a small chamber off to the side of the mortuary chapel, he found himself working side by side with Skaara until very late. His eyes blurred behind his glasses, but he was excited by his latest breakthrough and couldn't bear to stop.

"Danyel," Skaara scolded him for the dozenth time. "It has stopped growing late and begins to grow early! Are you ever going to rest?"

Daniel heard the serious concern beneath the teasing, but was too deep in thought to pay much attention. "Um-hm," he nodded absently. He heard Skaara snort, then laugh out loud.

"If I cannot convince you to rest one way I shall have to try another," Skaara warned.

"Um-hm." Daniel was paying him no attention whatsoever.

Until Skaara spun him around, pinned him to the wall, and dove under his robe.

"Whaaa--!?" Daniel squawked as Skaara's hands grabbed hold of his hips and his mouth attached itself to Daniel's cock like a leech. His pencil went one way, his notes went the other, and he scrabbled madly to tear his robes open and pull Skaara away from him.

The layers defeated him. By the time he got his hands on Skaara's hair it wasn't to pull him off. It felt too good and he was too close to coming. He tried to gasp a warning but his tongue wouldn't work right. Staring wildly down at Skaara, staring back up at him as he sucked, mischievous dark eyes daring him to try and stop it, Daniel gave in.

Not that he had much choice. Skaara knew what he was doing and was determined to do it. Daniel tried weakly to tug Skaara's head away before he came, but Skaara growled deep in his throat and sucked harder. The additional pressure and the vibration around his cock was all it took, and he came hard enough he got dizzy.

Folding over as all the strength drained out of his legs, he somehow ended up sprawled on his knees with Skaara behind him. Fuzzily trying to figure out how that happened, he started to ask. The question turned into a yowl as he felt Skaara settle down between his spread thighs and put his wicked mouth to work on his ass.

Not at all what he'd expected when he set out to translate hieroglyphics that evening.

"Skaa, ah, oh, god," he gave up, as Skaara worked wonders with his tongue and he felt himself hardening again. Fighting muscles that felt like boiled noodles, he managed to prop himself up on his elbows and reach for his cock.

Skaara beat him to it. "I'jaji'biai?" he asked politely as his fingers started to tug Daniel's cock.

"Sure, god, yes, you can have it, anything you want," Daniel rambled, distracted by the hand expertly working him.

"Cool!" Skaara said into the back of his neck, one of his favorite Tau'ri words. Before Daniel could respond Skaara knocked the last few remaining working brain cells off line by lining his cock up and shoving it firmly in Daniel's ass.

Daniel had the feeling they heard him yell all the way back to Earth, without benefit of the Stargate.

By the time he got his breath back Skaara had a rhythm going, pushing into him from behind and milking him in front. Daniel stared blindly at his fists, knuckles turning white as they dug into the sand, and rode it out the best he could. His brain was dropping interesting factoids from his subconscious about warrior brotherhoods and unmarried males in ancient societies when Skaara groaned, "Yas! Yas!"

Now, was it? Daniel thought, then yes, it was, as Skaara bucked up against him and squeezed him at the same time. Daniel's second orgasm threatened to rip the top of his head off.

"Kwayis!" he yelped, forgetting his Abydonian and lapsing into Arabic. It was good. So good. So very, very good.

Several minutes or a year or two later, Skaara stirred against his back. With a good-natured chuckle, he carefully withdrew from Daniel's body, crawled off and pecked him affectionately on top the head.

"This must happen again, soon, Dan-yel!" Skaara informed him cheerfully, then clapped him on the shoulder and bounded out of the chamber.

Daniel, feeling a lot like a train wreck, stared after him and mumbled, "Uh, yeah. Whatever you want." He fell asleep where he lay. He woke the next morning with an ache in his ass, sand stuck everywhere and a grin on his face.

That night set the pattern for the future.

Over the next year he dug, and he charted, and he translated, and he was happy. Skaara was his constant companion, a brother he'd never had, and alone under the sandstone walls, a lover. Life was better than he ever expected it to be.

The first Jack O'Neill knew of the imminent danger the Earth faced was when two men in dress blues showed up at his door and frog-marched him all the fucking way to Colorado Springs.

He'd been retired for three years, for crying out loud, sitting on his duff on the deck fishing. He had no intention of going anywhere near the Stargate again.

So much for intentions.

An intense, round general with a genial face and stony eyes met him at the base. All around him Jack saw the evidence of a recent battle with snakeheads. The first thought that hit him was that Jackson fucked up, and they were all in shit up to their ears. It wasn't the first time he'd bold-faced lied in an official report to save a teammate's ass, but it was a lie of a magnitude a hell of a lot bigger than any he'd done before. Wasn't often he claimed to nuke a planet into oblivion when he'd left it intact.

Well, as intact as the snakeheads would let him.

"Colonel O'Neill --" the general began.

"Retired," Jack popped in.

"I'm General Hammond, and we're in a hell of a mess."

That was an understatement.

Ignoring the SPs at every door and the general air of being under siege, Jack sat in the briefing room and listened to Hammond tell him that every nightmare he'd ever had about the snakeheads was coming true. Jackson hadn't fucked up. It was just a lot bigger threat than either of them knew.

"Our expert on the Stargate, Captain Carter, was abducted when the aliens came through. I lost four airmen that day. Since then, there have been three more incursions through the Stargate. Eighteen more have died."

"They're an advanced scout," Jack said, interrupting the general's flow. What the hell, he was retired. For about the next half hour, if what he was hearing was true.

"Tell us what you know."

"Not nearly enough. We need Jackson."

Hammond gave him a beady-eyed look. "Doctor Daniel Jackson? You said he was killed in the assault on Abydos. When you blew up their Stargate."

"Well, see, there's a problem with that." Hammond glared at him, and Jack sighed. This was going to get ugly. "I had two choices. One, I could blow up the gate, and leave the people of Abydos to face Ra alone. They'd all die. Okay, anybody who didn't die when the gate was nuked would die. Two, I could blow up Ra. Killing the snakehead seemed like the better choice of the two. At the time. Sir."

"And why was this not in your official report?" Ice cubes could take a lesson in cold from that voice.

Jack put on his best 'trust me' look. "Jackson buried the gate after we left, sir. The threat can't be coming from Abydos."

"That's one thing you're right about, colonel," Hammond threw him a bone. "We attempted to dial out to Abydos and were unable to create a stable wormhole. So if it's not coming from there, where's it coming from?"

Before he could answer, sirens went off, lights started flashing, and a voice hollered over the intercom, "Incoming wormhole!"

Here we go again, thought Jack.

Of course it couldn't last. A few years after Jack had disappeared through the Stargate, a Goa'uld glider crashed on Abydos. Daniel, as primary scribe to the tribe, was among the team that approached it. Flanked by Skaara and a guard of eight others, staff weapons at ready, he stood several yards from the ship and called out a cautious greeting.

"Hello! Tec'ma'te! Mi'la tu'tu?" Maybe asking if everything was okay wasn't the best way to approach a Goa'uld, but if they came out firing, the Abydonians were ready.

The door rose slowly, and a ramp descended. The men powered up their staffs. From within the wrecked ship came two distinct voices.

"Ba'ja'kakma'te," said a woman's voice.

"Don't shoot! We're friendlies!" came a man's.

"Kawalski?" Daniel asked, surprised. Since when did the USAF consort with Goa'uld? "Come out, but keep your hands where we can see them."

Kawalski came down the ramp first, hands away from his weapons, a big grin on his face. "Hi, Doc!"

Beside him was a woman, the embodiment of every straight adolescent boy's fantasy. Blonde, big eyes, bigger lips, dressed in a patchwork of fur and leather that accentuated her breasts and did nothing to hide her long, long legs. Daniel raised his zat'n'ktel and pointed it at her.

"Aray Kree." She froze on command.

"It's okay, Doc, she's a friend," Kawalski said.

Keeping his eye on the Goa'uld, Daniel asked him, "You're friends with a Goa'uld?"

"We are not Goa'uld," she informed him, her voice echoing weirdly and making a liar of her. "We are Tok'Ra. The Resistance. My name is Freya. My host is Anise. Doctor Jackson, tal mal'tiak mal we'ia." She bowed her head in a gesture of respect.

"Uhm, the honor is mine," he responded automatically, not at all sure this was any sort of honor. This was new. Since when did a Goa'uld acknowledge a host body? "Still, sorry about this, but people are a little antsy, what with their history with the Goa'uld and nearly being wiped out a couple years ago, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to give me your weapon."

She took the zat'n'ktel off her belt and handed it to him, handle first, immediately. That was easy. Daniel looked at it, then her, then smiled uncertainly. Skaara stepped past him, keeping a close eye on Anise, and gave Kawalski a hug.

"Back to camp then, I guess?" Daniel asked, wondering what the hell was going on.

"Sounds like a plan," Kawalski agreed, then started catching up with Skaara.

Daniel glanced out the side of his eye at Anise. She looked like she'd been molded of plastic. She met his eye and he held her glance for a moment before looking forward again.

Maybe not plastic. Maybe solid rock.

His gut instinct was at war. It wanted to trust Kawalski. It didn't trust Freya. It didn't know what to think about Anise. As they neared the settlement, he decided to address the host and ignore the Goa'uld, and asked one of the several questions darting through his mind.

"What is it, exactly, you're after, Anise? Abydos is a peaceful planet, with no weapons that would help you in war. Earth is a much stronger ally than Abydos could be, and since they appear to be on your side already, what is it you want from us?"

Her voice sounded troubled as she answered, "Earth is not as strong as it once was, Doctor Jackson. They are under attack by a System Lord who took Ra's place. Apophis has sent Jaffa through the Stargate on several forays, and Tok'Ra intelligence indicates a ha'tak is approaching to commence invasion."

"System lord?" Daniel asked, stumbling at the news that Earth was under attack. "Ha'tak?"

"We have much to discuss," she informed him solemnly.

That was for sure.

They walked into camp with Kawalski and Anise in the center of the guard. Cautiously friendly, not openly hostile but not welcome guests, either. Abydos had a complicated social structure, and after a long time living in the middle of it, Daniel was only just getting a good understanding of it. Kasuf shot him an inquiring look as they stepped into the council chamber, and he took a deep breath.

"Father, this is our Tau'ri friend Kawalski and his friend Anise, for whom he speaks. She is of a race called the Tok'Ra, enemies of the false god. They come seeking aid."

"Any who seeks to destroy our enemy is our ally," Kasuf welcomed them. "Please, be seated. Speela, bring refreshments."

The war council lasted far into the night. By the time it was over, everyone needed sleep, and no one got it. Work began to uncover the Stargate. Before they were finished, Anise came to Daniel with very disturbing news.

"I have received a communication from the High Council. Apophis is on Earth. The invasion has begun. It would be extremely dangerous to activate the Stargate at this time."

Kawalski nearly strangled her. "Fuck that! I gotta get back there!"

Daniel knew the feeling, but she had a point. His allegiances pulled him both directions. Open the Stargate, risk Abydos, on what could be a lost cause. Or leave the Stargate buried ... and Earth would certainly be a lost cause.

"We have to do what we can. Honored father?" he asked Kasuf, and got the nod he expected. He had a lot in common with his father-in-law, including a deep hatred of the Goa'uld and a willingness to sacrifice whatever he had to in order to protect his people. Both his family on Abydos, and his people of Earth.

When the last rock was pulled from the Stargate, at Anise's muttered warnings and Kawalski's urging to hurry, Daniel started to dial an address he'd never expected to use again. Before he could, the event horizon activated on its own, and they heard it.

Automatic weapon fire. Zat'n'ktel fire. Staff weapons being discharged.

People screaming. In English and Goa'uld.

The Abydonians had no chance, and no choice. Bodies hurtled through the gate, some in Air Force uniforms, some in Jaffa armor. Bullets and electrical discharges flew everywhere, in the midst of tight hand-to-hand fighting. The warriors of Abydos held their positions, picking off the enemies they could, trying to contain the battle to the Temple.

They failed.

The next half hour was unmitigated insanity. Kasuf fell in the second wave, as more and more Jaffa flowed through the gate. The cross-fire was so heavy around the dialing device no one could get to it to close down the wormhole, though two Abydonians died trying. A stray bullet from one of the airmen caught Anise in the chest, and she crumpled into an unmoving heap. Her eyes glowed briefly, then dulled.

One of the Jaffa swung out with his staff weapon and hit Kawalski with the end, turning his head completely around on his neck. He fell a few feet from Daniel, dead eyes looking up with a startled expression. Daniel looked away from the nightmare image just in time to avoid being hit by a zat'n'ktel. He slugged the Jaffa and followed it up with a kick to the pouch, then ducked under the falling Jaffa and brought his knee down to hold the neck while he wrenched back on the helmet. The Jaffa's neck gave with a satisfying crunch. Daniel caught up the zat'n'ktel to replace his own, damaged by a glancing blow from a staff weapon, and rejoined the battle.

Sometime in the middle of the chaos Jack O'Neill came tumbling through, three Jaffa hot on his tail. Daniel took out one with a staff weapon, while Skaara took down another, and Jack killed the third. Daniel reached out and grabbed Jack's arm, pulling him into an alley near the temple. It was time for a strategic retreat.

"Colonel!" he hissed. "Come on!"

"Good to see ya," Jack whispered back. "Where we going?"

"Someplace safe." He raised his voice to be heard over the din. "Homeplace!" he screamed, the code word for retreat and regroup. All around him, Abydonians broke off fighting and scattered.

Once into the streets, Daniel ducked down as a squad of Jaffa thundered past, then yanked Jack along with him as he headed for a minor temple at the outskirts of the settlement. "A place we've set up as a secondary command center, in case of another invasion. Anyone who survives will go there."

"Sweet," Jack told him, then fired past his shoulder, taking down a Jaffa who'd doubled back and found them. "Run."

Daniel was already moving.

It was long past sundown by the time they'd wound their way to the temple. Daniel was in shock, a deep burning anger starting in his gut at the death he saw all around him. Huddled with Jack in one of the small rooms off the main chamber, he asked quietly, "Is it like that on Earth?"

After a long moment, Jack said, "Worse. He had these fucking monster ships that were honkin' big, and they hit main cities on all the continents at once. D.C. went up in seconds. Over a billion died in the first ten minutes. It was insane."

Daniel closed his eyes and fought against throwing up. "The Stargate?"

"Took 'em a little longer to get through there. George, that's the guy in charge now, General Hammond, he evacuated people as fast as he could. Last one out was supposed to nuke the gate." He took a deep breath. "They hit us faster than we expected. Hundreds of 'em. They couldn't get in as long as we kept the gate charged up, but it can only hold for forty minutes or so. Soon as we lost it, before the self-destruct could engage, the fucking snake got more of his troops in. Bunch of us played tag with 'em for an hour or so, then made a break for the gate. Makepeace dialed up Abydos, but before we could get out another bunch broke through the security doors. Killed Makepeace, and his body landed on the DHD. Too much cross-fire, couldn't get through to get him away, and the gate opened." He shrugged, mouth tight, eyes seeing things Daniel could only guess. "We all came through the gate, screwed Abydos along with Earth, and the rest you know."

"We can't give up," Daniel said quietly.

"Never said anything about giving up," Jack growled back. "I sure as hell don't want one of those damned snakes in my head. And I'm going to take out as many of the sons of bitches as I can before they take me out."

Daniel agreed wholeheartedly. His resolve was tested over the next two days.

The temple was overrun the morning after they took sanctuary there. Skaara made it through with a handful of warriors, but over the long hours of the night no other survivors arrived. At dawn, a Jaffa scout caught sight of one of the Abydonian men and sounded the alarm. The fight, and the chase, were on again.

After nearly eighty hours without sleep, Daniel was starting to hallucinate. He'd spent days without sleep before, but that was researching while mainlining coffee, not running and hiding and killing people and trying not to be killed. When the end came, it surprised the hell out of him.

He, Jack and Skaara rounded a corner, shooting at their pursuers, when Skaara suddenly screamed and flew sideways into Daniel. Reaching out to catch him instinctively, he cried, "Noc!" as if somehow saying no would stop it from happening. Half of Skaara's chest was blown away, and he was dead before he came to rest in Daniel's arms.

Jack shoved them both out of the way of the next blast, screaming, "Die, you motherfuckers!" before a staff weapon discharged and caught him full in the face.

Daniel couldn't do a damned thing. He'd lost his weapon when Skaara hit him, and now he knelt, his brother's body in his arms, his friend's corpse beside him, and stared up at the man who had murdered them.

"Bon'iqua?" he asked softly. Why? It was such a waste.

One of the Jaffa raised his weapon and their leader barked "Kree! Rhe'u." An order to stay away. Daniel didn't understand why they didn't just kill him. The leader walked over to stand in front of him, then put an armored hand under his chin and raised his head to study his face. " Se'biu," he commanded.

Pulling away, Daniel looked down at Skaara one last time. He closed the staring eyes, placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, and whispered, "Lek tol." Goodbye was the most he could do; the rituals would have to wait until he had the time and peace to do them. If ever. Placing Skaara's body next to Jack's, he rose to his feet and walked behind the leader of the Jaffa.

As they entered the main compound, once a Council chamber, now a holding pen for prisoners, he deliberately stumbled. The leader reached to catch him, and Daniel thrust his knife as hard as he could toward the leader's heart.

An inhumanly strong hand caught his wrist as the tip of the knife slid through the layers of armor. Daniel, caught, stared wide-eyed at the Jaffa commander, expecting to have his neck broken at any moment. To his intense shock, the Jaffa smiled at him with what looked oddly like approval. Then took his knife away from him and put it in his own belt, without letting the rest of the guard see that Daniel had tried to kill him.

Daniel was still trying to figure out why he was still alive when the Jaffa commander shoved him bodily into the center of the mass of prisoners and slammed the bars down on the door. Holding his bruised wrist against his chest, he watched the man dismiss his soldiers. An older warrior, with a silver helmet, came up to the commander and whispered to him. Daniel watched as they conferred, then both turned and looked at him.

Damning them with his eyes, he stood and stared right back.

The older Jaffa smiled, with that same odd approval the commander had given him, then they both turned and left. Daniel had a sinking feeling he'd passed some sort of test.

He only hoped his reward wouldn't be to get a Goa'uld wrapped around his brain stem.

With Kasuf and Skaara dead, it fell to Daniel, as the surviving male of the headman's family, to provide leadership. Once the Jaffa left them alone, he gathered the remnants of his tribe around him. They were shaken, bloodied, exhausted, in shock, but they were not defeated, and he told them so.

"The false gods seek to imprison us, but they cannot," he said quietly, his steady voice calming them and causing them to draw nearer to listen. "We have lost many today, those we loved and respected. We have a hard journey before us. But we are not dead, and we are not defeated. As long as we have the breath of life in our bodies, our minds, our souls, are our own. We shall do what we must to honor our dead, and live free until we die free."

They knew what he was asking of them. Death before dishonor was easy in practice and incredibly hard in execution. But they were strong people, and they had tasted freedom. They would not accept slavery again.

"Shall we attack them when they come for us, Dan-yel?" one of the younger men asked.

"Wait, and watch, little brother," Daniel advised him. "Do not give your life cheaply. If you cannot win with an attack in the face, then you may win with a knife in the dark. To win however you may is no shame. We shall defeat our enemy, no matter how long it may take. The way of the scorpion is no less honorable than the way of the snake."

They also understood what he was telling them. They might be prisoners, but they would never stop looking for an opening to strike. It might take years; they would suffer; but they would defeat their enemy or die in the attempt. And if they should die, their souls would be free.

He met one pair of dark eyes after another, being as reassuring and strong as he could be for them. By the time the Jaffa returned with their Goa'uld masters, the people of Abydos would be ready to meet their enemy. Nodding at the resolution he saw in their faces, he sat down and cleared a space.

The tools of ritual were absent, but the intent and the need were there, and Daniel did what he could. He sang the song of praise and glory for the honored dead, sending them on their journey with the blessings of their people. He sang a lament for their losses, and a song of vengeance for the future. His people sang with him, and when the last voice died away, there was peace in the prison, regardless of the bars on the door and the fate that awaited them.

Sometime in the long night and day that followed, exhaustion caught up with him and he slept. When he woke, it was to hunger, uncertainty, and the sure knowledge that he was being watched.

Glancing up, Daniel was startled to see the Jaffa commander staring at him from the shadows of the corridor beyond the guards. He wondered how long the Jaffa had been there. Raising his chin, refusing to show anything but defiance, he glared back.

The commander lowered his head for a moment, and when he raised it, Daniel thought he saw a smile on his lips. It was gone so quickly he decided he must have imagined it. Then the commander turned and was gone.

Daniel wondered what the devil that was all about. Not that he had a lot of time to worry. Moments later, he heard the tramp of armored boots in the corridor. His people stirred and gathered around him. The barred door opened, the guards keeping their staff weapons aimed at the prisoners as they came into the chamber. Daniel rose to his feet to meet the challenge.

A phalanx of guards swept across the stone floor, followed by two Goa'uld, a male and a female. The male was a short, slender Egyptian dressed in gold from head to foot. He must be Apophis, from what Jack had said. Beside him was a pale woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a dimple in her cheek. She would have been lovely, except for the glow emanating from her eyes and the cruel smile curving her mouth.

The Jaffa commander stood beside them. " Ke'i! Bow down before your god," he bellowed.

When the Abydonians made no move to do so, the guards moved among them, forcing the people to kneel. Daniel went down when one cracked him behind the knees, and he stifled the cry of pain that tried to escape. The Jaffa commander was staring at him again.

The Goa'uld was speaking, something about someone called Klorel, but Daniel wasn't paying much attention. It was almost as if the Jaffa was trying to tell him something, but he'd be damned if he could figure out what it was. Then several of the younger boys were dragged forth, and Daniel surged to his feet, along with most of the adults, fighting to protect the children.

Zat'n'ktels fired from all directions, and people fell beneath the onslaught. Daniel wasn't hit by a weapon but was caught and held between two of the Jaffa guards. A hand gesture from the commander kept him in place. Daniel opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on and the commander raised a hand.

"Kegalo," he commanded. Silence. But he didn't have Daniel shot. It made no sense.

The Goa'uld pair were leaving, herding the boys in front of them. The male looked over at the commander. "Sha'lokma'kor," he ordered, sounding bored.

Daniel felt his heart lodge in his throat. Kill them all. So much for covert resistance.

The Jaffa commander charged his weapon, leveled it and fired it.

At the Goa'uld.

He fell.

Total confusion reigned. The commander bellowed a series of commands and the Jaffa seemed to split into factions as fighting broke out among the Goa'ulds' guard. The female Goa'uld screamed bloody murder and reached out toward the dead male, but two of her guards grabbed her and hustled her from the room.

Under cover of the chaos, Daniel scooped up a staff weapon from one of the fallen Jaffa and yelled for his people to get the hell out of there. "Bradio!" he screamed, "To the Chaapa'ai!"

The older warrior he'd seen earlier was now at the commander's side, adding his own deep voice to the melee. The Jaffa were in disarray, many of them dead, and the Abydonians scattered like mice, into the corridors and out through the city to the temple of the Stargate.

Daniel ran as hard as he could and ended up near the front of the pack. Throwing himself at the dialing device, he called to mind the one proscribed address he'd found on the cartouche-map of the Stargate system. A place called Cimmeria. If it led to a planet the Goa'uld avoided, it would be the best possible place for his people to go. Slamming down the seventh key, he barely waited for the event horizon to stabilize before urging them through it.

As the last of the Abydonians disappeared through the event horizon, Daniel saw several Jaffa heading as fast as they could toward the gate. He reached for the dialing device to shut it off, to protect his people. Then he saw that there were more Jaffa chasing the group, firing staff weapons at them. He hesitated.

The commander, for whatever reason, had allowed his people to escape the prison. Killed his own god to do it. Daniel could do no less. Leaving the gate open, he used the dialing device for cover and started shooting at the hostile Jaffa.

At the back of the fleeing Jaffa he could see the commander, urging his men on, shooting at what had until an hour before been his own men. It was an astonishing turnaround, and Daniel wished he knew what had caused it. Later, if he was lucky, he might find out. If they both survived the fire-fight.

One of the Jaffa skidded to a stop at the dialing device. He glanced at it quickly, then slammed the wormhole shut.

Daniel yelled, " Shak'ti'qua?! What are you doing?"

"We die if we go to that place!" the Jaffa yelled back, dialing frantically after the wormhole collapsed. Daniel leaned around him and shot down a Jaffa moments before he would have killed the one doing the dialing. "We go to Chulak!"

Okay. Another new homeworld. Which meant either Daniel was going to have to re-dial Cimmeria after the Jaffa escaped, or go with them to Chulak then try to get to Cimmeria from there. Out of curiosity, Daniel tried to see what sequence he was dialing, but it was hard to watch the Jaffa's hands and his back at the same time. As soon as the Stargate whooshed to life, the renegade Jaffa threw themselves into it.

The commander was the last one to the gate. Daniel saw the Jaffa loyalists, with reinforcements coming up fast, then looked at the dialing device.

"Rock, hard place, damnit," he grumbled. Then he didn't have time to make a choice, as a huge hand grabbed him by the collar, another slammed down on the dialing device, and he found himself hauled bodily through the wormhole moments before it shut down.

Never a pleasant experience, wormhole travel. It left him freezing cold, disoriented and sick to his stomach. It also played hell with his allergies. Tumbling out through the Stargate on Chulak, he landed right on top of the Jaffa commander.

"I am Teal'c," the Jaffa rumbled.

"Daniel Jackson," he responded automatically. "What the hell's going on?"

"We have destroyed the false god. We shall live free!"

The whine of a staff weapon discharging over their heads caused Daniel's head to pop up, just in time for Teal'c to yank him back down and roll over on top of him. The cover was great, if the bulk didn't squash him flat.

"Not all of the Jaffa are as yet enlightened," Teal'c went on to explain, then brought his own staff weapon around and took out three Jaffa warriors with one smooth burst. "We shall now retreat."

With that, he rolled back off Daniel, pulled him to his feet, and took off for the trees at a dead run.

It was an apt beginning to the next four years of his life.

He didn't make it to Cimmeria that day. Nor the next, nor for several weeks. Before he could get anywhere, he ended up side-by-side with Teal'c as they fought, and won, the battle to free Chulak. After that, well, other things kept getting in the way. He did dial through to Cimmeria, and he did go once, but his people were settling in well with the people of that planet, and he found himself drawn back to Chulak.

Drawn back to Teal'c.

The Jaffa renegade fascinated him. Teal'c seemed fascinated in return. The other Jaffa took their cue from their leader, and treated Daniel with respect. It made very little sense to Daniel. But he took advantage of it, learning all he could from the Jaffa warriors, of their culture, their ways, their dreams and their strengths. Bra'tac, the elder warrior Daniel had seen in the corridor with Teal'c, took Daniel under his wing. More often than not, he felt like a stray puppy, but he was used to that feeling.

What he wasn't used to was the way Teal'c watched him. Constantly.

Watching Teal'c in return across the campfire one night, after the training had ended for the day and the hunters were in from the fields, he tossed a stick on the fire and asked the question that had been bothering him since he'd first noticed Teal'c watching him in the prison chamber.

"Why didn't you kill us?" 'Me' was unspoken but easily heard.

Teal'c raised a brow, then gave Daniel the same mysterious smile he'd given him then. "Your words spoke to my heart. You knew fear. Pain. Grief. But not defeat. I had known for some time that Apophis was a false god. Over many years, I walked in two worlds, performing my duties as I must yet sowing the seeds for freedom among my warriors. I knew one day an opportunity must come. When it did, it was presaged by your words. The false god ordered your deaths, as he had so many before, but for the first time, he was surrounded by men who worshipped freedom, not himself. The time was right for action, and so I did."

"So it wasn't me, per se, so much as it was circumstance." That made more sense.

"No, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c quietly disagreed. "It was you." He looked at Daniel with an unsettling intensity. "Your words spoke to my heart."

Daniel took a deep breath. Then let it out slowly, looking away from those disturbing dark eyes and back to the fire. "My heart is wounded," he finally said.

"One day, it will heal." Teal'c sounded more sure about that than Daniel felt. "When it does, perhaps my words will speak to your heart." He stared at Daniel for a long moment.

Daniel couldn't think of an answer to that, and he found he couldn't meet Teal'c's eyes, either. Feeling as lost and confused as he had the day Skaara died, he stared at the fire and let the silence speak for him. Eventually, Teal'c bowed his head, then rose and returned to his tent.

They didn't speak of that night, but Daniel thought about it. Often.

Daniel stared down at the tableau spread out before him and blinked. Teal'c. Okay. That, he had no problem with. But himself? Himself as a long-haired, relatively clueless, Jaffa-trained renegade Tau'ri on the run from Sam as Amaunet? And this could help his people on Earth, how? He turned to Oma.

"This? This is the solution the cohort of the Ascended came up with?"

She nodded, once, the picture of perfect dignity. For an instant, he wanted to smack her. Then he took a deep breath. Blinked a few times. Centered himself. Deliberately relaxed and said, seriously, "You've got to be kidding."

"The candle reflected can still show the way," she assured him.

"So the only way I can help them ... is through me?"

"Light flows to the light."

He stared at her. Took another deep breath. "Right." He could work with that. He'd better be able to.

It wasn't like he had any choice.

Five months later, Daniel joined Teal'c and eight other Jaffa on a mission to a planet called Nasya. They were running low on naquada, needed for their weapons, and the Tok'Ra indicated there should be a supply at a temple there. The gate was heavily guarded, as expected, but the guards were surprisingly easy to overcome. Daniel ducked under incoming fire, shooting two guards with his zat'n'ktel and kicking another in the head as the guard stumbled.

Well, he'd meant to kick him in the head. He actually caught the Jaffa's throat, but the crunch of cartilage beneath his foot and the blood bubbling from the guard's mouth made it clear he was dead. Daniel grimaced and trotted over to join Teal'c, trying to forget the way the man's neck had felt under his heel.

Teal'c barked out orders, and the small group set out. They'd had no losses at the gate, but were prepared for a more difficult fight at the temple itself. Once on the grounds, they moved silently in, eyes everywhere, weapons at the ready.

All they found were a dozen or so priests, all of whom either shrank to the ground with their arms over their heads or ran away as soon as they saw the Jaffa. Not exactly what they'd been expecting.

"This is not as it should be," Teal'c growled under his breath. Daniel looked sideways up at him.

"What's up?"

"The guard is too light, the resistance too weak. Naquada is a precious commodity. It would be better protected than this."

A shout from one of their men brought them around to the inner chamber. Daniel peered at the bubbling tank, filled to the brim with Goa'uld no longer than his finger, and shuddered.

"What the hell is that?" he asked, pointing his zat'n'ktel at the tank.

"A crèche," Teal'c answered shortly.

"Well, that explains why it isn't guarded. Nobody in this area would think to take on the gods --"

"False gods," Teal'c inserted automatically. Daniel grinned.

"False gods," he corrected himself. "And the other Goa'uld aren't going to raid one another for babies like they might for Naquada. Uhm, are they?"

"No, they would not, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c agreed. He sounded like he was thinking of something else, and Daniel threw him a look. Teal'c stared at the tank as if he was on the horns of a particularly hairy dilemma.

"I mean, it's not like the Goa'uld would kill their own young, right?"

Teal'c didn't answer. He simply raised his staff weapon and shot the tank. The walls shattered and milky blue fluid splattered everywhere. The larval Goa'uld flopped and writhed on the rocky ground for a few moments before going still.

"We, on the other hand, have no qualms about it," Daniel said after the last sounds of shattering glass and squeaking dying baby Goa'uld faded away.

Teal'c shrugged, turned his back on the dead larvae scattered like lemmings on the ground, and walked back to join his men. Unfortunately, the crèche was the only thing of any value in the temple. Not for the first time, Tok'Ra intel was off the mark.

Later that night, back at camp, Daniel found himself in Teal'c's tent sharing the Chulak equivalent of coffee and asking Teal'c what he was thinking about that afternoon, as he destroyed the crèche.

"You said we had no qualms. I had one qualm only," Teal'c said calmly. Daniel raised his brows at him. "The symbiote I carry will mature in less than five years. At that time it will leave me and seek a host. Without a prim'ta to take its place, I will die. Crèches such as this are extremely rare and always well hidden. We discovered this one by accident, searching for naquada. The possibility of discovering another in my time of need is remote."

He didn't seem all that upset about it. Daniel found himself fighting the unexpected urge to shake Teal'c until his teeth rattled. "What are you planning on doing? When the time comes?"

"If I am still alive, I shall remove the mature symbiote and kill it before it can take a host. If a prim'ta is available, I shall make use of it. If one is not, I will die."

Fatalists. Sometimes they were a real pain in the ass. "We can leave that up to chance, or we can keep an eye out for a baby Goa'uld. I vote for the latter."

Teal'c looked appraisingly at him. "Why is this matter of importance to you, Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel drank the last of his pseudo-coffee, placed the cup on the low table, shoved himself off his cushion then dropped to his knees next to Teal'c's. Those dark eyes watched him still.

"It just is." Reaching up, he wrapped his hands around Teal'c's skull and pulled him forward into a kiss. With no hesitation, Teal'c kissed him back.

It was a journey of discovery, as the last several months had been, only of the body rather than the mind. The man behind the facade of the commander had fascinated Daniel since they broke for freedom together. The more they'd talked, the more he'd learned, the closer they'd become. He admired Teal'c, not for the obvious things like his strength, charisma, leadership that drew his Jaffa warriors to him.

Daniel admired him for his perseverance. His willingness to sacrifice. His inability to accept defeat.

His weird sense of humor.

The comfort of his silence.

As he lost himself in the soft lips opening for his, the large hands cradling his body, the breadth of the man beneath him, Daniel realized he loved Teal'c as much as he admired him. And he wanted him as much as he loved him.

Their first time together was simple. Teal'c kissed him, and touched him, that same small smile on his face all the while, more in his eyes than on his lips. Every place he touched felt electrified, until Daniel was moving against him involuntarily, reaching out to hold him as he lost control. Daniel muffled his cries against Teal'c's shoulder as Teal'c stroked him to climax, petting and soothing him as he shivered against Teal'c's warm skin. As he lay there, Teal'c's fingers running through his hair, resting on his neck, he felt more at peace than he had in months.

When he could breathe again, Daniel took his time exploring Teal'c. The smooth dome of his skull, the intricacies of his tattoo, the line of his jaw. Running his hands, then his mouth, over the bunched muscles of his shoulders and chest. He petted the cross incision along Teal'c's abdomen, and felt movement beneath. When he made to draw back, for fear he'd somehow hurt him, Teal'c took his hand and pushed it lower.

"Ignore the prim'ta," he whispered. "It feels pleasure, but it does not share our joy."

Daniel took him at his word, gliding past the pouch to wrap his hand around the erection nudging him. Long and full and thick, befitting the man. Daniel settled himself between Teal'c's thighs and did, indeed, enjoy himself. He licked along the crown, down the front and up the side, over and over, until Teal'c's entire body hummed with tension. Daniel glanced up through his lashes and saw Teal'c staring at him through half-closed eyes. Sweat shone on his skin, and his smile was gone, as he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

It was a good look on him. Daniel decided there and then to put that look on Teal'c's face as often as he could. Given that most of the time someone was shooting at them, that could be a challenge. But he was up for it.

Very up for it. So up for it he was hard again. Dropping his hand down to his cock, he began to jack himself, and for the first time heard Teal'c make a sound.

"Daniel!" he groaned, sounding as if he was in pain.

It was all the urging Daniel needed. Taking as much of Teal'c's cock into his mouth as he could, he sucked hard, pulling himself equally hard, and whimpering around the bulk stretching his jaw. So good, too good to last, everything good always was, then he was coming, and he had to stop sucking to breathe, or he'd pass out. He clung to Teal'c's cock with his free hand as he came, squeezing unconsciously, and Teal'c dropped his hand to join Daniel's, rubbing it along the length of his cock as he watched Daniel.

As Daniel collapsed against Teal'c's thigh, Teal'c gasped and arched, coming against Daniel's chest, bathing his skin in seed. Still milking Teal'c gently, Daniel leaned forward and lazily licked the end of his cock. Teal'c's entire body shuddered.

They lay there together quietly for some time before Teal'c stretched over and took a cloth from his pack. He wiped at the mess on Daniel's skin, rubbing it in more than cleaning it off. When he was finished, he tossed the cloth away and settled back against his cushion. Daniel felt a hand settle on his head, stroking his hair.

Close to sleep, quite content where he was, Daniel had a sudden thought. "One thing, Teal'c."

"Yes, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c rumbled. He sounded pretty content, himself.

Just as he'd suspected. "Call me Daniel."

The hand on his head stilled, and Daniel knew precisely what he'd told Teal'c when he'd given him permission to call him by his familiar name. Assurance that this was important, acceptance as family.

Trust.

After a moment, the petting began again, even more gently than before. Teal'c whispered, "Tal mal'tiak mal we'ia."

"The honor is mine," Daniel said. And meant it.

Fourteen months later, Daniel stood on the side of a hill and stared at the smoldering remains of Hathor's compound. The Goa'uld queen had attempted to use him as a breeding stud. Thanks to Tok'Ra intel and Jaffa persistence, with a little Abydonian cunning and plain old Tau'ri good luck, he'd managed to escape. The last of Hathor's Jaffa who'd refused to join the revolution were lying dead on the grounds of the compound.

Teal'c came up behind him, burrowing one warm hand below the fall of his hair to cup the nape of his neck. Around them, their allies finished the task of clearing the grounds of anything useful, weapons, armor, food, medicine ... between them there was a rare moment of stillness, and Daniel allowed himself to relax for the first time in days.

"Make me forget her touch," he said softly in Chulak.

"It will be my pleasure," Teal'c answered, his voice low, an echo remaining of the berserker rage he'd turned on the Goa'uld for defiling his Daniel. His hand moved in slow circles against Daniel's skin, soothing away some of the tension, promising comfort Daniel found only with Teal'c.

Then the hand was withdrawn, and Teal'c walked down to confer with his lieutenants. Daniel stood and watched him for a moment, then turned the other direction and went to speak with Selmac, the Tok'Ra field commander.

Over the months, she'd become his friend. He'd saved her life during a raid by a Goa'uld called Hera'ur, and she'd given Daniel a pair of beautifully worked leather gauntlets in thanks. Selmac was one of the few Tok'Ra symbiotes he'd ever been able to bring himself to trust.

A portly, white-haired woman, she reminded him of the ideal of a grandmother from television shows he'd seen as a teen in one of the foster homes he'd stayed at for a few months. He'd barely refrained from calling her Aunt Bea on more than one occasion. Only the fact that he was the only person alive who would understand the reference stopped him.

At times, the fact that he was the sole survivor of the planet Earth hit him hard. Usually over little things. For someone who'd spent most of his life feeling like an outsider, the concept that he was the last of the Tau'ri was beyond bizarre.

She was examining a batch of crystals when he came to stand beside her.

"Good haul?" he asked.

Twinkling eyes looked up at him from the round, wrinkled face. "A very good haul indeed, my dear," she agreed. It had taken him a long time to get used to the hollow echo of her voice. At least she kept her eyes from glowing. "My only regret is that you had to suffer at her hands before we could rescue you."

"And that we lost so many good warriors," Daniel reminded her, an edge to his voice.

"That is my constant regret, my friend," she answered sadly.

He nodded, abashed. The Tok'Ra had lost many in the fight against the Goa'uld. Particularly in the last few years, with the ascendance of the more vicious System Lords Cronus and Amaunet to positions of power. The Bastard Blonds, as Daniel called them, had cut quite a swathe through their fellow Goa'uld. The only thing that kept the revolution from utter failure, and the rest of the Goa'uld from complete destruction, was the fact that they'd never formed an alliance. They hated one another with a passion.

Daniel sincerely hoped it stayed that way. The revolution had a slightly higher chance of succeeding as long as the System Lords kept fighting one another.

Of course, slightly higher than zero was still not very good. He kept that conclusion to himself. But he had come to the realization that, in the end, they were going to fail.

The Asgard, brought into their alliance by the Cimmarians, were too busy fighting the bugs, the Tok'Ra were too few in number, and the Jaffa were to fixated on their own cause, to be able to defeat the Goa'uld. The best they could hope for was to kill as many of them as they possibly could.

It was a goal Daniel could really get behind. Especially after four days chained to Hathor's bed. Some men might dream of a red-haired siren fucking them halfway to death on a regular basis. For Daniel, knowing that the end result would be more Goa'uld, it was a real nightmare.

Not to mention the fact that Teal'c was a possessive son of a bitch.

Selmac's voice drew him from his thoughts. "We shall be returning to Vorash tonight." She withdrew purple and silver crystals from the tray before her, wrapped them in a cloth and handed them to him. "These should repair the hyperdrive in your tel'tak."

He thanked her, holding the crystals fast. Since stealing the cargo ship a few months before, he and Teal'c had literally used it up, ferrying refugees, equipment and supplies between the Tok'Ra, Abydonian and Jaffa bases. He'd become quite an accomplished smuggler since joining up with the rogue Jaffa.

It was the general opinion in the Resistance that the main reason they'd stolen it was so they could finally have some time alone. Since it was true, Daniel never bothered to deny it.

Once the Jaffa and Tok'Ra finished stripping the temple, Daniel and Teal'c took the supplies they'd be delivering to the outposts and left the planet. It was a three day trip through relatively uninhabited space, but there were Goa'uld all over the known universe hunting for them, so they remained cloaked.

That didn't mean they had to keep watch 24/7. They had sensors and alarms and AI to help out there. They had to sleep sometime.

Daniel had to get the sense-memory of that raping Goa'uld bitch off his skin.

Teal'c waited for him on the bed they'd made in the crew quarters, the one luxury they allowed themselves. They availed themselves of it too seldom, due to the circumstances of their lives. Daniel stripped off then sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Teal'c.

"What do you desire of me, Daniel?" Teal'c asked, his voice echoing softly in the room. Arrowing straight through Daniel, making him hard. Making him want. Making him angry.

"I want to fuck you." The words came out before he could stop them. "I want to bury myself in you the way she used me, and I want to lose myself in you the way she stole me from myself, and I want you to love me." His voice gave out and he took a harsh breath, the anger finding a target in himself. Furious with himself for his loss of control, he reached for Teal'c even as Teal'c opened his arms to catch him.

There was nothing of gentleness in their kisses, only hunger. Passion. Wrenching need. Bruises that wouldn't show on dark skin, met with acceptance and patience. Teal'c had been the victim of a Goa'uld's whims for most of his life. He understood as few others would Daniel's need to purge himself of Hathor. He whispered reassurances to Daniel in Chulak and English, a steady stream of words bathing Daniel in forgiveness and love.

So when Daniel pushed, Teal'c turned onto his belly and spread his legs willingly. Daniel stared at the strong back, the muscular buttocks, the sturdy thighs, and felt something inside him break. Taking little time for preparation he threw himself on Teal'c, hands lifting and separating the round cheeks as he squirmed down until he could cover him. The first thrust hurt, himself more than Teal'c, as Teal'c was relaxed, while Daniel was still sore from days of Hathor's use.

He pushed past the pain, needing it, a penitent with his flail, knowing he'd had no way to combat what she'd forced him to do but needing to punish himself for it anyway. Rake it clean from his skin. Shred it off, and recreate himself. Inside Teal'c.

The intensity couldn't last, but as long as it could, it burned through him. He screamed words, things he couldn't hear, from his gut and his soul and his heart, not his mind, and the words sank into the steady cadence of Teal'c's voice, as his body lost itself in the encompassing heat of Teal'c's body.

His hands clenched on Teal'c's hips until his fingers cramped. He thrust as hard and as deep as he could, crying out and apologizing and cursing all the while. When he came, it hurt again, with the sharp sudden pain of a tearing muscle, as the tension inside him drew into one giant knot then released along with his orgasm.

Afterward, he lay curled in a ball next to Teal'c's side, holding on as if his life depended on it. Teal'c held him, and touched him, all the places she had touched, every gentle stroke easing away the memory. Leaving him free again. By the time he'd calmed down, Teal'c was hard, cock seeking against Daniel's stomach, leaving a wet trail on his skin.

Reaching up to wrap his arms around Teal'c's neck, Daniel nuzzled beneath his ear and whispered, "Please make love to me." Winding his legs around Teal'c's waist, he shifted his weight and rolled them over until Teal'c lay on top him. Then he moved until he could feel Teal'c's cock rubbing up against him. "Now."

Still murmuring love words, Teal'c took his time, reaching beneath Daniel to stretch him, easy enough to do as exhausted as he was. Then he sank slowly into Daniel, a bit at a time, letting Daniel adjust, making Daniel feel every movement. Reclaiming that which had been taken from him.

Daniel nearly drowned in sensation. The weight of Teal'c above him, the vulnerability of his position, the bulk of Teal'c inside him, deeper and deeper, took the feelings of helplessness he'd despised with Hathor and turned them into the gift of love they had always been with Teal'c. By the time Teal'c was completely inside him, Daniel was moaning, needing that closeness as he'd never needed it before, wanting it to go on forever.

Then Teal'c was withdrawing, and Daniel grabbed him, glaring up at him. "Where are you going?" he demanded, clenching his legs around Teal'c's waist.

"I need more," he answered firmly, "as do you, Daniel."

He kneaded Daniel's buttocks for a moment, and Daniel pushed back into it, only realizing then how his back was beginning to ache and his muscles were tightening up.

"I don't want you to stop." He slid his calves down the outside of Teal'c's legs, rubbing them, stropping against Teal'c's body like a friendly cat.

"I will not."

Teal'c kissed him again, sucking at his lower lick and playing with his tongue until Daniel was light-headed, then breaking the kiss to lay another, a gentle bite, along his jaw. Down the side of his throat. At the center of his collar bone. Over a nipple. Daniel raised his arms and allowed Teal'c full access, drowning in the feeling of those hands and that mouth on his body.

Running his tongue down the center of Daniel's chest, Teal'c slid his hands around to Daniel's back and kneaded the muscles from his shoulders to his ass. He continued to lick and kiss his way along the front as his hands explored the back, until he'd made his way to the re-awakening erection.

With a sideways change of direction, he avoided the chafed, reddened cock, and nuzzled along Daniel's balls before spreading his legs and kissing the thin skin between his thighs. Daniel felt his brain begin to melt along with his muscles as Teal'c burrowed between his legs, running his hands down to knead the back of his thighs as he nibbled all the way back to his ass.

Lifting a knee, he obligingly rolled over so Teal'c could have free rein with the back as he had with the front. His scraped cock felt like fire against the sheets, and he arched up, trying to escape the burn. Incidentally lifting his ass to the perfect angle for Teal'c to spread his buttocks and lick between them.

"God!" he yelped, grabbing for the pillow and holding on for dear life. It wasn't often Teal'c did this. Every time he did he turned Daniel to mush for hours afterward.

Precisely what he needed.

Teal'c took his time as he had since he'd taken control of their lovemaking, leaving tiny bites and licking kisses from Daniel's thighs up over his buttocks to the small of his back. Then he made his way back down again, between the quivering cheeks, and lapped until Daniel could feel the hole trying to pull that probing tongue inside. Daniel was incoherent by that time, concentrating all his energy on remembering to breathe and not passing out at the intense sensations radiating from his ass.

There was barely a pause as Teal'c raised himself over Daniel and replaced his tongue with his cock. One heavy hand held Daniel's hip to keep him in place, because at the first touch of the snub head to his hole Daniel lunged back, trying to impale himself, nearly insane with want.

"Not yet, my Daniel."

He pressed in, and Daniel nearly screamed with sheer relief. The first thrust rocked him on his knees, then a gentle hand came round his hip and took hold of his cock.

"You are mine, and I am yours." Teal'c's quiet voice made the words into a vow.

All Daniel could say was, "Please."

Teal'c pushed all the way in, relaxed out an inch or so, then pushed in deeply again, barely leaving Daniel's body. He set a slow, steady rhythm that quickly drove Daniel crazy but was exactly what he needed. The hand at his cock held him, letting the small shifts of their bodies cause the little friction the tender skin could take. Teal'c's other hand drifted around Daniel's torso until it rested over his heart, and Daniel, shifting his weight onto his left arm, raised his right hand to cover it, their fingers twining together.

With iron control, Teal'c held them there, stopping when the pressure became too much, dropping kisses on Daniel's shoulders and steadfastly refusing when Daniel begged him to move, until neither could wait another moment.

Feeling the hand tighten around his cock, Daniel muttered, "Yes!" as Teal'c lengthened his stroke, nearly withdrawing his cock completely before pushing back in. Faster, and tighter, faster still, and Daniel was flying, his mind spinning away as his body convulsed. Teal'c continued to hold him and move in him throughout his climax, still pushing into him as Daniel collapsed beneath him, shaking and panting.

With what little strength he had left Daniel flexed the muscles in his ass, trying to give Teal'c some resistance, and Teal'c groaned. Daniel smiled into the pillow as Teal'c suddenly wrapped his arms around Daniel's hips and pulled them in tight to his body, arching against him and crying out Daniel's name. Heat pulsed through him, then welcome weight landed against him as Teal'c sagged over him.

A moment later, Teal'c had gathered his strength sufficiently to roll off Daniel, and Daniel immediately missed the warmth. Shifting over to his side, he nestled against Teal'c, burying his face in the side of Teal'c's neck and throwing an arm over his chest, a leg over his thighs. A long arm cradled Daniel in return, holding him close, and with his other hand Teal'c stroked Daniel's hair, pushing it back off his sweaty shoulders, cooling and comforting him.

Lying there, together, exhausted, complete, Daniel never wanted to be anywhere else. Never wanted it to end. He fell asleep on that thought.

He woke to shrieking alarms. The ship was under attack.

Amaunet.

Again.

Some things never changed.

Seven months of running flat out led Daniel back to the Abydonian base camp on Cimmeria. A few weeks before Teal'c had planted a bomb under Cronus' ha'tak, screamed "Die, murderer of my father!" and blown the bastard to hell where he belonged. Unfortunately, that meant Amaunet took over his fleet. And came down on the Resistance even harder.

One step forward, five steps back.

By the third day under heavy bombardment from the mother ships and gliders above, intent on blowing the planet to pieces since they couldn't set foot on the surface, Daniel knew time had run out. He ducked back through the trees and made his way to Gairwyn's cave.

The leader of the native people on Cimmeria had been receptive to the people of Abydos, calling them brother refugees, although the Jaffa couldn't come to the planet. Even Teal'c stayed away from it, due to the nature of the defenses put in place thousands of years before by the Asgard. It saved them from Jaffa death squads. It didn't save them from being pounded to pieces from the sky.

Daniel wished like hell he was on Chulak with Teal'c. Instead of in a chamber miles beneath the surface trying to call long distance when it looked like nobody was home.

"Thor has always answered before when we have come to him in the Hall of Mjollnir," Gairwyn fretted. "This cannot be good."

She was adept at understatement. Finally the holographic chamber flickered to life around them, and Daniel looked around for the Asgard High Council.

The chamber was in ruins. Gaping holes had melted through the walls. The chairs and railings dripped like slag to the floor. Everywhere he looked were small gray corpses. Scurrying over and around them were the metal bugs the Asgard had fought for so long.

To which they had finally succumbed.

"Oh, my god," Gairwyn mouthed, barely getting the words out.

"Son of a bitch," Daniel snapped, yanking her out of the holo-data stream before the bugs could see her and get curious.

"What does this mean, Daniel?" she asked numbly, eyes wide with shock.

His instinctive answer, 'we're screwed,' wouldn't do anyone any good, so he gave her the best answer he had. "We're on our own, Gairwyn."

She pressed a fist to her mouth, shook for a moment, then straightened her shoulders.

"Then we shall die with honor, my friend," she told him.

"Or run like hell before they blow up the planet, and live to fight another day," he contradicted her. It was a strategy he'd been using a lot lately.

An instant later they were transported back to the entrance to the Hall, and Gairwyn raised her horn. Daniel covered his ears, wondering if the warriors would be able to hear the sound over the thundering explosions going on all around them.

He was answered a moment later when he heard the dim ring of the answering horns echoing down through the valley. The evacuation was on. Yet another refuge fell to the Goa'uld, and the free universe shrank a little bit more.

Daniel was starting to feel like a cornered rat, and he really didn't like it. Unfortunately, he didn't know what to do about it. Allies were scarce on the ground, and most weren't in any better shape than the Cimmerians. They had willingness, they had bodies, they had a few weapons ... they were fighting a losing battle.

Staring at the empty gate as the surviving Abydonians and Cimmarians were welcomed by the renegade Jaffa on Chulak, a whole lot of hesitation on both sides, he wondered what might have been if Earth hadn't fallen. Just for a moment. He didn't think about it very often. Daydreams when one was on the run could get a man killed. Still, every once in awhile, he wondered.

Then he shook it off and turned back to his people. Maybe they couldn't win the war. But they would fight until the last one fell.

Something told him, deep inside, that he would be the last man standing. As he did every time that thought occurred, more and more often the more desperate their straits became, he ignored it. He had more pressing things to do than worry about a future that would probably never come.

General Hammond stared at the communiqué and wondered how many other ways his day could go to hell in a handbasket before lunch. He didn't know how he was going to break it to the president. Heck, he didn't know how he was going to break it to Jack.

"Thank you, Vidar," he said softly to the Asgard waiting quietly by his desk. "Please pass on my most sincere condolences to the Asgard High Command. Thor ... was a great friend to the Tau'ri. He will be sorely missed."

The small gray alien blinked twice at him, nodded once, and disappeared in a flash of light.

Hammond stared down at the folders stacked neatly on his desk. The jagged red and white border marking them Top Secret gave tired eyes the optical illusion that they were rimmed in neon. They held nothing but bad news.

The Tollan were dead. Blackmailed almost to the point of taking Earth with them. Now, from all accounts, dead to the last man. Not that they'd been a whole lot of help, until right at the end, when they didn't have any choice.

The Asgard were dying, even if they did have a handle on the Replicator infestation. With half Thor's brain downloaded into Osiris' mainframe, and the new capabilities Anubis had at his command, the Asgard had too much on their plate with their own enemies to worry about Earth.

The last year or so had been a fatal game of three way tag between Anubis, Earth, and everybody else. The 'everybody else' was getting scarce, though, and all indications were that it was coming down to Anubis versus Earth.

The Tok'ra were in disarray, most of the Council dead, communications in shambles, the survivors being flushed into the open on a dozen or more worlds by the System Lords. There hadn't been a lot of Tok'ra to start out with, and with the wholesale slaughter going on lately, there'd be damned few left when the Goa'uld were done.

The Jaffa revolt, what was left after Yu firebombed their base, was in its infancy, and needed more help by far than it could give. Would for a long time, probably longer than Earth had left. Hammond shook off the dark thought, but it stayed there, lingering at the edge of his mind.

It did that a lot, these days.

He shuffled the folders. Everywhere he looked he saw more problems with allies. The Nox were unreachable, and best intelligence seemed to be that they were hiding out. Not that they were the most reliable allies around, but hell, with the way things were, Earth was getting desperate.

It would've been nice to have Oma lend a hand ... thoughts of Oma led to thoughts of Daniel, and Hammond closed his eyes briefly and tamped down the thought before it could distract him from the current threat. That had also happened a lot in the last few months.

It had taken twenty years to come to terms with never knowing if his best friend was alive or dead, after Nam. He wondered if it would take another twenty to do the same with Daniel.

If they even had twenty years. After a moment, he opened his eyes again and glared at the folders. The situation was unstable. Anubis had some pretty nasty armory at his disposal, some very fancy technology, and Hammond had the gut feeling the Earth was on the edge of Armageddon.

The real one, not the Asgard one.

It was getting harder and harder to make sense of the universe, lately. Maybe it really was time for him to retire. He picked up a folder, glanced at the bad news inside, and dropped it back down on his desk. Daniel's death, or disappearance, or whatever the hell it had been, had hit him hard, too damned hard. If it wasn't for the fact that he knew the NID or the NSC or the CIA or some other damn-fool alphabet soup would come in and screw it all up, he'd have quit a long time ago. With allies dropping like flies on a hot August day, he couldn't afford to walk away.

No matter how damned much he wanted to.

Stifling a sigh, Hammond straightened his shoulders, squared his jaw, and picked up the red telephone. First he'd deal with the president.

Then he'd tell Jack.

Nearly a year after Cimmeria fell, the four disparate groups of allies had made a fragile peace with one another. The Tok'Ra discovered a small cache of Goa'uld larvae, and several of the Jaffa with the most pressing need removed their mature prim'ta and replaced them with the larvae. There was no ceremony as the adult symbiotes were removed. There was no time for ceremony.

A trusted friend stood next to each Jaffa as he awaited the transfer. When the larva was ready, the Jaffa simply reached into his pouch and pulled the symbiote out by the neck. It fought to escape, desperate to reach a host. The trusted friend would take the tail of the symbiote and pull a knife through its body, severing it in two.

Only once were they unable to stop a symbiote from escape. Early on, a Jaffa waited too long. There were no larvae available. He sought to do the honorable thing and ensure that he was no danger to his comrades. He removed himself far from camp, his friend at his side. No one knew that the team were missing for any reason other than the usual desire for privacy.

Until the Abydonian came back alone. Stole a staff weapon. Killed two of the Tok'Ra and one of the Cimmarians. Her eyes glowing brightly, she screamed her defiance as she was hit by staff fire from three directions.

The revolution lost five warriors that day, seven if one counted the Tok'Ra symbiotes. Too high a price to pay. From then on, when a symbiote reached maturity, it was removed and destroyed. In front of witnesses.

Whether a larva was available or not.

Daniel stared down at the body of Ve'lar, a friend he'd trained with and fought beside over the years. Ve'lar had been one of the Jaffa who'd revolted along with Teal'c. He'd been sarcastic, and funny, and incredibly loyal. He'd died within an hour of his prim'ta being destroyed.

"It's a damned waste," Daniel growled under his breath to Teal'c as they began the preparations for Ve'lar's burial ritual.

"It is as it must be." Teal'c paused for a moment and wove his fingers under Daniel's hair, resting his palm against Daniel's nape in a gentle caress. "You must give me your word," he added quietly. "If the time comes and you must make the choice, you will choose the path of honor as Ve'lar did. You will help me to die free."

Daniel swallowed, his mouth dry, and made the promise he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. "You will die a free man. You have my word."

A rare smile lit Teal'c face. "Thank you, my Daniel." He let go of Daniel and turned to Ve'lar's body. "Let us now do our duty to our friend, who has gone on to glory at Kheb, who died an honorable death, and lived a free life."

"Amen," murmured Daniel as he stepped forward to join Teal'c. For an instant, he thought he heard his own voice echoing in his ear. Shaking it off, thinking he must be more tired than he thought, he took one corner of the litter upon which Ve'lar's body lay, and walked toward the funerary tent.

Another day.

Another loss.

"He's not listening, Oma." Daniel stared at his mirror self and sighed in pure unadulterated frustration. He'd been trying to get through to the thick-headed bastard for months. Every time he got close, mirror-Daniel got kidnapped by a Goa'uld, or shot at, or the planet destroyed beneath him. Or he was in bed with Teal'c. Whatever, he was distracted, and Daniel couldn't get through.

"The river has not yet joined the sea." She smiled sweetly at him.

"So you're telling me I have to wait? But the Earth, my friends, they can't wait. They have no time."

"A journey lasts as long as it must, Daniel."

Her eyes were full of sympathy, and he had a feeling that she was trying to tell him something and he wasn't understanding what she was saying. A very familiar feeling.

"Can I at least throw a wrench in Anubis' plans until I can get me where I need to be? Woah, that sounded confusing, even to me, and I knew what I meant."

She smiled at him, but he read the 'no' in her eyes.

"Then what am I to do, Oma? I can't just let them die!"

"Be careful of the choices you see, Daniel," she warned him. "For did not the best of intentions lead to the worst of evils?"

He was not talking about running off and getting implanted with a Goa'uld. He knew she knew that. But time was running out.

For everyone.

War left no time to grieve. Amaunet had her hands full with an upstart Goa'uld called Sokar, who'd decided the best way to beat her at her own game was to destroy or conquer any world in which she took an interest. Frustrating for Amaunet, no doubt, as her Jaffa, her temples, her mines, her slaves and her crèches were all fair game.

Downright deadly for the Resistance, since they were high on her list, and anything high on her list made it to the number one spot on Sokar's.

Ten days after Ve'lar's death, gliders from Amaunet's ha'tak struck Vorash. On their sixes were gliders from Sokar's ha'tak. Many Jaffa pilots on both sides died that day.

Many more people died on the ground.

Daniel and Teal'c had the bad luck to have landed there on a supply run. Perched a few miles away from the settlement, they saw the first wave of gliders coming from the sky and scrambled for their tel'tak to pulled the big guns out from the cargo bay. Teal'c headed for the peltak and began monitoring activity on the ground.

"Daniel," he called out, "desist."

That wasn't what Daniel expected. "Why? They'll need these to fight off the gliders!"

"There is no one left to fight," Teal'c called back solemnly.

In shock, Daniel came forward and stared at the monitors. There were so many gliders in the air, and so many Jaffa in formation, it looked like the screen was covered in ants. The ground beneath the ship rocked from explosion after explosion.

"Crap," Daniel whistled through his teeth.

"As you say," Teal'c agreed.

The damage was incalculable. One explosion took out the miniature crèche where the larvae for the Jaffas' prim'ta replacements were kept. Another took out the armory, more a lucky hit than anything planned, as an out-of-control glider impacted with their small store of naquada, sparking an explosion that leveled the compound.

All but a handful of the Tok'Ra were killed when it exploded, because along with the armory the compound contained command and control. The rest that were on the planet died shortly afterward, as Jaffa from both sides took aim at them. None were taken prisoner, as neither Sokar nor Amaunet were interested in information.

They were after annihilation.

It was a devastating blow to the resistance. And there wasn't a damned thing Daniel and Teal'c could do to help. Powering up the engines, they'd barely taken off when their luck went sour.

Two gliders on the tail of a third, impossible to tell who was on whose side from the ground, came out of nowhere as the tel'tak rose. As soon as they saw the cargo ship, one peeled off to continue pursuit of the target glider and the other immediately opened fire on the tel'tak.

"Son of a bitch!" Daniel screamed as he pulled at the piloting controls.

Teal'c, nodding agreement but not saying a word, fired the weapons they'd adapted to the tel'tak right after stealing it, giving it cannons and rockets. Not much good against a target that was ten times faster than they, especially after they took a hit to the engines and several more to the shields.

"I'm heading for the gate!" Daniel yelled over the whine of the over-burdened crystals and the shriek of stress on the frame as he put the tel'tak through a series of wild maneuvers, buffeting it with g-forces it hadn't been built to sustain.

Scarcely able to keep ahead of the glider, taking one hit after another, it was a damned good thing they were only a few miles from the Stargate. Sluing the bulk of the tel'tak around so that the escape ramp led directly to the dialing device, Daniel slammed the ship down and cut the engines. "Run!" he screamed, belting the emergency release on the ramp.

Teal'c didn't need to be told twice. He was already out the door, staff weapon up, laying down covering fire to protect Daniel from the glider and the oncoming Jaffa. Daniel took one look at the group of Horus Jaffa, and the slight, feminine figure at the center of them, and growled, "Fucking hell."

Amaunet herself. Just what they didn't need. Their timing, as usual, sucked. She must have come through the gate right before they got there.

Getting a few shots off with his zat'n'ktel, he threw himself from the ship and starting slamming glyphs on the device. He'd memorized so many addresses years ago on Abydos, but most of the gates he usually used were now in enemy hands or destroyed along with the planets beneath them. Taking a wild stab at a dim memory, he pushed the last glyph and laid his hand over the center crystal.

Just in time to hear Teal'c cry out in pain.

Turning so fast he nearly overbalanced, he saw Teal'c fall, fire burning at his chest and shoulder. His staff weapon landed on the dirt, and a moment later Teal'c began to fall.

Before he hit the ground, Daniel was beneath him, dragging his uninjured arm over his shoulder and hauling him to the gate. He didn't know where the hell they were going, but it had to be better than this.

The cold of the wormhole put out the flames on Teal'c's clothing, but could do nothing for the damage to his body. When they stumbled out through the gate on the other side, they found themselves in, of all things, a laboratory. Long abandoned, judging by the dust coating everything. The scientist in Daniel, subsumed by necessity to the warrior for so long, stirred, but there was no time.

As always.

Horus guards boiled through the gate behind them, and Daniel, with Teal'c doing his best to help, scrambled for the far side of the room. He shot over his shoulder with the zat'n'ktel but couldn't see if he hit anyone. Above the din of the battle he could hear Amaunet's angry voice, screaming "Shol'va!" -- traitor -- and "Kill them!"

As if they needed any encouragement.

His attention divided between Teal'c and the bastards trying to kill him, Daniel didn't see the small box at his feet until he tripped over it. He went down hard, Teal'c half-on top of him, and picked it up to throw it out of the way. When he touched it, his thumb nudged a lever, and where there had been an empty frame in front of him a moment before, now he saw a corridor. Reaching out with the arm still wrapped around Teal'c, he touched the surface of the strange mirror. The back of Teal'c's hand, clutching his wrist, touched the surface at the same time.

An electrical charge shot through Daniel, and he thought for a moment he'd been hit with a zat'n'ktel. But no second shot came, and he looked up to see one of the Horus guards leveling a staff weapon at him through the mirror. Instinctively he threw his hand up. The one holding the device that tripped him in the first place.

The lever moved again.

The Jaffa, Amaunet still screaming over his shoulder, disappeared.

The mirror went blank.

Daniel stared at it and wondered when he'd fallen down the rabbit hole, and where the March Hare might be.

Teal'c groaned beside him, shaking him from his bemusement. He had no time for this. He had to get back somewhere safe. Teal'c needed a doctor. With as much care as he could take, Daniel rolled Teal'c over onto his side and checked his injuries. They were dire. Bone showed through where the blast had eaten through his flesh, and parts of the exposed bone were singed black. Even with his symbiote working full time, it might not be able to heal damage of that magnitude.

He refused to think about the fact that lately, as the symbiote neared maturity, it had been less and less amenable to helping Teal'c at all.

Looking around for a means of escape, he saw they were in a mirror lab to the one they'd landed in before. It was cavernous, full of odd equipment and layers of dust, and at the side stood another Stargate.

"Courage, my Teal'c," Daniel told him, gathering him up the best he could and tugging him toward the gate. "We'll go home now. Get you patched up, good as new. Maybe we'll luck out for once and the guys back on Chulak will have found you another baby snake."

Pressing the glyphs, tightening his hold as Teal'c began to sag against him, Daniel gritted his teeth. Took a deep breath, and dove into the wormhole with Teal'c plastered to his side.

When they came through the other end to Chulak, things were just as bad as they'd been on Vorash.

"Shit, shit, shit," Daniel bitched, losing his grip on Teal'c. Controlling his slide the best he could off the side of the steps, he threw himself over the top of Teal'c's body to shield it from incoming fire. "I did NOT need this!"

"Daniel Jackson!" A voice called to him, sounding shocked. A moment later a body landed next to his, a hand steadied a staff weapon a foot from his nose, and the Jaffa squad shooting at him got a face-full of staff fire. The ones that didn't die backed off.

Daniel glanced up to see Master Bra'tac, staring at him like he'd seen a ghost. "Bra'tac! Teal'c's hurt! What the hell's going on?"

"I wish I knew," Bra'tac replied. "You cannot stay here."

"No shit," Daniel muttered, pulling Teal'c further behind the broken steps sheltering them. "Where do we go?" He was out of ideas. Out of options. He glanced down at Teal'c, panic in his heart. Almost out of time.

Not answering, Bra'tac threw himself out from behind the steps, firing non-stop. Making it to the dialing device he began to punch in an address. Daniel raised himself over the broken step he'd been hiding behind and laid down cover fire with his zat'n'ktel. Once Bra'tak hit the center crystal, he dove behind the pillar supporting the dialing device and took aim with his staff again.

"Daniel! Take Teal'c! Go!" he yelled over his shoulder.

"Where?" Daniel yelled back, once more hauling Teal'c to his feet. This time, there was barely any help at all. He could feel Teal'c weakening.

"Cal mah!" Bra'tac cried.

Sanctuary. They had one of those? Since when?

Taking almost all Teal'c's weight on his back, Daniel headed for the gate as fast as he could, staggering past Bra'tac. Who was still staring at him like he'd grown another head. With neither the time nor the breath to ask what the heck was wrong, and with no place for conversation in the middle of battle with Teal'c bleeding out over his back, Daniel decided he'd explain it all later.

If they all survived.

"Incoming wormhole!"

Siler sounded the alarm, and General Hammond looked up from the debriefing he was taking from SG-1. "Hold it," he told them, then took off down the stairs at a trot to the command room. Jack was on his heels, Teal'c on his, Jonas on his. Sam trailed behind. By the time the last of them clattered into the room, Hammond was staring at a familiar signal.

"Bra'tac? What's happening on Chulak?"

Teal'c didn't wait to hear. He turned on his heel and headed for the gate room. Hammond nodded at Jack, and Jack took out after him. Jonas looked at Sam, who shrugged and shooed him after the rest of the boys. Hammond bit his lip.

He was going to have to have another talk with Major Carter. Soon.

"Open the iris," he told Siler, and went to join his flagship team. A moment later the bright blue event horizon rushed into the room. By the time it stabilized, SG-1 waited at the end of the ramp. SPs leveled P-90s at the gate, just in case. Hammond watched from beside Jack.

The men who came staggering through were not what he expected.

"Teal'c?" he asked, aghast, staring from the sorely wounded Jaffa to his whole double standing, staring with the most surprised expression he ever got -- two raised eyebrows -- at the pair. But that wasn't the strangest part. Hammond called out, "Get a medical team to the gateroom, on the double!" as he goggled at the man barely managing to hold Teal'c up.

Covered in dirt and blood, scraped and bruised, hair hanging halfway down his back and tied off with a strip of leather, outfitted in a weird combination of a Jaffa's trousers and an Abydonian tunic, with leather knee-high boots and wrist gauntlets that looked like something the Tok'Ra who dressed Anise would come up with ... was Daniel Jackson.

"It's about time!" Daniel glared at his mirror-self.

Oma sighed. "All things to their place, and all destinies in their time."

He smiled, abashed, at the reproach in her voice. He was young, and he knew it, and with youth came impatience, particularly when those he loved were in trouble. But he was learning. And he had waited. Not directly interfered. Let fate take its course, and now that it had, he was going to take full advantage of the fact.

There was a connection between himself and the other Daniel unlike any he had with his remaining friends, even Jack. While it bothered him to wait while Anubis got away, literally, with murder, he could understand Oma's insistence that he did. He could feel what the mirror-Daniel felt. The absolute desperation, the impending loss, the sure knowledge that he was losing everything.

And the connection was a two-way street. He could use that.

Daniel couldn't give himself back Teal'c, or Skaara, or the world he'd lost. But he could give him a chance to save another world, another Skaara ... another Teal'c. He hoped it would be enough.

He thought of Anubis.

It would have to be enough.

Daniel didn't recognize the gateroom at first, too distracted by the way Teal'c's body went completely slack against his. One sweeping glance to make sure nobody was shooting at them, a vague impression of guys who looked like Tau'ri but couldn't because they were all dead, and it was enough to allow him to attend to more important matters.

Teal'c.

He stumbled down the ramp as far as he could get then felt his numbed hands lose their grip. Controlling their fall the best he could, Daniel followed Teal'c down, cradling the back of his head and looking into his eyes.

Above his head he heard a voice he didn't recognize say, "Teal'c?" before yelling for a medical team. Good. Wherever Bra'tac sent them, they were friendly. A nice change from constantly finding sanctuaries had fallen into Goa'uld hands.

Then other cries caught his attention. Various calls of "Daniel!" and "Danny!" and "Doctor Jackson!" along with a few more of "Teal'c?!" and at least one "What the hell?"

One of the people yelling his name was a woman. A woman with a very familiar voice. Daniel looked up ... and saw ghosts.

There was Jack, who'd died so long ago on Abydos. And another Teal'c, looking absolutely astonished, plus a couple men Daniel didn't recognize ... and Amaunet, beaming at him. He grabbed his zat'n'ktel and raised it to fire at her.

Dead Jack stepped between them. "Whoa, there, Danny, why're you trying to zat Sam?"

Since the question made no sense whatsoever, Daniel stared at him for a moment trying to figure it out, finger still on the trigger.

"And what's with the hair?"

Hair? Sam? Daniel growled, "Her name's Amaunet, she's the same fucking Goa'uld responsible for this, and how the hell did you come back from the dead?"

"We could ask the same of you, Daniel Jackson," the other Teal'c said, while the woman Dead Jack called Sam stared at him, tears filling her eyes.

He didn't have time for this. Trusting, for the moment, that Amaunet wasn't going to kill them, he stuck the zat'n'ktel on his belt and put his other hand on Teal'c's chest.

No time left.

Staring into the light dying from the dark eyes, Daniel took a deep breath. Managed to let it out without screaming. Said calmly, "I love you."

The babble above his head cut off. In the silence, he heard Teal'c say, his voice only an echo of its usual deep timbre, "As I love you. It is time." He gasped for breath and cut off a groan. "It must be done now. While I still have the strength." Another gasp, and weaker than before, he forced out, "I hold you to your promise."

Daniel would rather cut off his own arm than keep it, but that wasn't what Teal'c needed from him. He took his knife from his belt. Teal'c reached into his pouch and pulled forth the mature symbiote. His fingers were tight around its neck. Its facial claws flared.

Sound broke out around him again, but he heard none of it. Reaching out swiftly, taking hold of the tail, he stretched it taut and cut it in two. The halves writhed for a moment, blue blood pouring over their hands, then lay limp.

"People!" the older man who'd called for aid suddenly yelled. "Quiet!"

Another blessed silence. Teal'c took a gasping breath, and his free hand raised to slide beneath Daniel's hair, fingertips barely grazing the nape of his neck. "Dal shakka mel," he whispered. Someone above them gasped quietly.

"Free," Daniel echoed, then bent down and kissed him one last time. The lips beneath his barely stirred, then stilled.

As he sat back, staring into the empty eyes that had always held such warmth for him, a sudden loud noise announced the arrival of the medical team. Daniel looked up to see the other Teal'c, staring at him, understanding in his eyes.

It hurt.

"Hold up there, doc," Dead Jack said. The small woman in the white coat and the two men with her came to a halt. "Anything we can do to help, Daniel?"

"There are ... rituals to be performed," he said, his voice sounding rusty in his ears.

"They shall be done," the other Teal'c assured him, and Daniel found himself believing him. Then Amaunet stepped from behind Jack and headed for him.

His zat'n'ktel was in his hand and pointed at her in an instant. She froze, and the other Teal'c reached down and gently took it from her.

"This is Major Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force," he told Daniel, "and she is your friend."

"What's going on?" Daniel asked, watching as the medical personnel gathered Teal'c's body up to put it on a stretcher. "Earth was destroyed years ago by the Goa'uld. None of this should be hap--" He stopped mid-word.

Standing at Dead Jack's shoulder was ... himself. If he'd ever cut his hair so short he looked like a soldier, and had new glasses, and wore a white sweater ... and glowed. All over, not just the eyes, so he wasn't Goa'uld.

Besides, he was floating a few inches off the floor. Daniel'd never met a Goa'uld who could float.

"You're here because you're needed here," the glowing Daniel told him. He swallowed. "Don't worry, it's going to be okay." Glowing Daniel looked at Dead Jack and grinned. That's when Daniel noticed Dead Jack was the only one of the people gathered around him who paid any attention to Glowing Daniel. He squinted.

Yup. Not only did he glow, he was transparent.

"Ghost," he guessed.

"Ascended," the other him said, making no sense, but then, none of this did, so that wasn't new. "It'll make sense soon." Thus proving not only did he float and glow, he could read minds. "Only yours. Because you're me. Only a different me."

Sure. Daniel looked at Dead Jack, who gave a shrug that indicated clearly he had no fucking clue what Glowing Daniel was talking about either. Great. Blind leading the blind. Before he could lose the temper he could feel dangling by a thread, Glowing Daniel reached out a hand and ... touched him.

Thoughts and memories, not his own, flooded through his mind in a dizzying torrent. His eyes closed and he swayed on his feet. The other Teal'c moved to stand beside him, one large warm hand bracing him. It was so familiar, yet not, and it hurt like the devil.

"Sorry about that. Well, all of it, really. Work with me here. This is important."

The voice was inside his head now, and fast as the speed of thought, he saw a mirror, like the one he'd gone through, and heard the woman's, Sam's, voice say "possibly made of naquadah, which allows interdimensional transport to alternate realities," and "scientists have theorized that there are an infinite number of dimensions, each containing a different possible version of reality, some of which are very different, and some of which are almost identical..." Frighteningly enough, that made sense.

More memories flashed through, some close to what he'd experienced, others incredibly different. When the floodgates closed again, Daniel found himself with a whale of a headache and a very different perspective on the group staring at him with varying degrees of concern.

Dead Jack, now just Jack in his mind, looked back and forth between them and finally barked, "Fer cryin' out loud, somebody want to tell me what the hell's going on? Either of you?"

The rest of them, Daniel excepted, looked at Jack like he'd lost his marbles. Daniel found himself smiling, a strain given the way his heart felt and the blue and red blood staining his hands, but a relief all the same.

"It's weird," he said, taking their attention from Jack, who was waving his hands in the air as if to say 'don't ask me, I don't know anything.' "Weirder than anything else that's ever happened to me, and that's saying something. In fact, if I wasn't seeing it for myself --"

"Nobody else can see me," interjected Glowing Daniel. Jack tossed him a glare. "Oh, except Jack."

"Thanks," Jack muttered sarcastically. The older man, Hammond, was staring at Jack like he was about to lose his patience. Daniel shrugged.

"It's all a little unbelievable."

"That's a matter of perspective," Jack said.

"I was sent here to help." Daniel ignored him. From the look on his Ascended self's face, that would quickly become a habit.

"By whom?" asked Hammond.

"Would you believe, myself?"

That got a reaction, as everyone began to look around frantically. Ascended Daniel sighed, then reached over and ruffled first Sam's hair, then Jack's. Jack gave him a dirty look that somehow managed to be affectionate at the same time. Sam looked pole-axed.

"I would," Jack said.

"I would," Sam agreed, sounding shaky.

Teal'c looked at Daniel. "As would I."

It sounded so much like his Teal'c he nearly cried. Or collapsed. Before he could do either, Hammond said, "All right, everyone to the briefing room. I want to know what's going on before anything else odd happens."

"Anything else, sir? That would be everything, wouldn't it?" Jack asked.

Daniel wasn't paying any attention to them. The medics were carrying Teal'c's body away, and he called out a soft blessing in Chulak. A lover's goodbye. The arm around his waist tightened. Tearing his eyes away as the stretcher disappeared down the corridor, Daniel leaned on the other Teal'c as he was led toward the door.

"This should be interesting," Sam said, still staring at Daniel.

"That's a matter of perspective, too," he told her softly. She smiled at him, tears still in her eyes, and the warmth of the other Daniel's thoughts washed through him. Not Amaunet. Not the enemy.

His friend.

This would take a lot of getting used to.

Before they made it out of the gateroom, red lights began to flash and sirens sounded. Daniel looked over to see a strange metal covering, like the iris on a camera, had closed over the Stargate. Hammond looked up at the glassed-in control room above them, and Daniel followed his gaze.

A man with a white brush cut and glasses stared down at them. "We have a confirmed signal, sir. It's the Tok'Ra," he said over the intercom.

Daniel started. "Some survived?"

Sam and Jack stared at him.

"Uhm, where I come from ... they didn't."

The huge iris opened, and an event horizon established itself. Daniel found himself intrigued by the defensive concept of the iris. "Wonder who thought of that?" he murmured. Sam glanced over at him, then glanced away, as another imported memory flashed through his mind. "Oh." No wonder she wasn't Amaunet. She'd at least had a chance.

Maybe he would, too.

Now.

It was too damned bad his Teal'c wouldn't.

A man stepped through the wormhole, a stranger to him. Sam said, "Hi, dad," as Hammond said, "Welcome, Jacob," and another borrowed memory swept through him.

"Selmac?" Daniel asked, incredulous. The man they called Jacob stopped and stared at him.

"Daniel?" he asked, his tone much the same. His eyes flashed, then glowed, and Selmac's familiar voice, an octave lower than usual, came from him.

"This is unexpected."

"I'll say," Daniel told him. Her. Whatever. "I'm used to you being ... a woman. And dead." He shook his head. Dual-track memories would require some mental adjustment. "Doesn't matter. What's up?"

The Tau'ri gathered around him gave him a slew of looks from exasperated to affectionate, and he shrugged. Somebody had to ask, and at least it changed the subject. Selmac was staring at his gauntlets.

"When did I adopt you? We have got to talk," she said. Then her head lowered, and when it rose again, it was the host, Jacob. "But that will have to wait," he added. "We've finally gotten a look at Anubis, and we don't know what to make of it."

Over Jack's shoulder, Daniel saw his Ascended self again. "We do," Daniel said, responding to the other's thought.

Jacob gave him another sharp look. Jack glanced casually over to where Daniel was looking and did a double-take at the look on his face. Both Daniels smiled at him.

"Oh, boy, this is gonna be fun," he groaned.

"That's one way to look at it," Hammond said, then pointed them toward the briefing room.

Daniel leaned on Teal'c, feeling his own emotions and his other self's, fatigue and grief beginning to catch up with him, and getting dizzy with all of it. Teal'c said nothing, simply held him more tightly. He and Daniel followed the rest of the group up a flight of circular stairs and into a big, bright room with a long black table in the center of it.

Sam sat on one side of the table, Jack on the other, Hammond at the head and Jacob/Selmac beside Jack. Teal'c moved toward the seat next to Sam, and Jonas, who'd been very quiet, hovered in the background.

"Park your butt, Jonas," Jack told him, and he moved gingerly forward, shooting anxious glances at Daniel the whole time. Daniel ignored him, settling into a chair, reluctant to let go of Teal'c. Too much to handle at one time, and no rest in sight.

Story of his life.

Jacob/Selmac pulled a recording device from his tunic and placed it on the table. "We had an operative on one of the ha'tak vessels recently acquired by Anubis. She was discovered, wasn't able to get out, and we got word Osiris killed her --"

A flash of memory struck him, yet another blonde with glowing eyes, with regret and pain and loss attached to her. He looked around, and saw his Ascended self leaning against the back wall. No one else seemed to notice. The other Daniel was staring at the hologram Jacob/Selmac now triggered.

"But before she was captured she managed to smuggle out these images."

The lighting was poor, but the picture was taken at close range, so the details were clear. What few details there were. Beneath the heavy hood was a striated nightmare of a face, silver eyes in a shifting black and silver surface with no discernible features. Energy seemed to sparkle through it, tiny tendrils like an electrified jelly fish. It was nauseating.

Daniel looked away, back at his other self, and in an instant, the glowing image shifted. The Ascended Daniel looked like a gold and silver version of the silver and black being in the hologram, without the shadows and the vague air of decay. Another instant, and his familiar face and form reappeared.

Before Daniel could say a word, Sam blurted, "Oh, no!"

Everyone looked at her. She shook her head, blinked, and stared hard at the hologram.

"Yes?" Jack prompted. "You'll take 'weird creatures of the deep' for five hundred, Alex?"

That non sequitor had Daniel, Teal'c and Jonas all staring at Jack. The rest of the group ignored him. Sam sighed.

"Don't you recognize it, sir?"

"No, but I have to say, it's nice to see you get your groove back."

For some reason, she blushed at that and shot a glance over at Daniel. He looked back, nonplused. She took a deep breath and glared at the hologram.

"It looks like a twisted version of the energy beings. Like Oma Desala. Like ... Daniel." She swallowed, as nearly everyone at the table avoided looking at Daniel. He, in turn, looked over at Ascended Daniel.

An energy being. Well, that explained the glowing and the floating. More of the new memories made sense, too.

Jack cleared his throat. "Okay. If I squint real hard, I kinda see a resemblance."

He looked around, but Daniel could tell from the way his eyes swept right past his Ascended self, standing in the corner looking sad, that Jack didn't see him.

"Sorta," Jack added, sounding a little sad himself. He then turned his gaze to Daniel. "So, does that mean our Daniel sent you through to give us a hand taking out Anubis? Level the playing field?"

Ascended Daniel nodded once, and Daniel said, "Something like that."

In the space of a breath, the glow was gone. He felt air ruffle his hair, then saw it do the same to Sam, then Jack, and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.

A voice whispered in his mind. 'We'll work it out.' So he wasn't as alone as he'd thought. Together, they might have a chance to win. Something he hadn't had in a very long time.

Hammond thanked Jacob/Selmac, looked around the table, and said, "Let's get to work, people."

Daniel tried to stand up. His legs felt like Jell-O. "I need to see Teal'c," he said abruptly. The Teal'c standing beside him frowned. "My Teal'c."

"First you require rest," Teal'c told him.

"And a shower," Jack put in.

"Some time to adjust," Sam offered.

"Your office back," Jonas suddenly said. Daniel jumped. He hadn't heard anything from him in so long he'd forgotten Jonas was there.

"A thorough de-briefing," Hammond added.

"And when you get the chance," Jacob said, "I'd love to hear about Selmac."

Daniel looked around. His new home. He hoped it held up better than the last one had. The voice that was yet wasn't his whispered to him again, and he agreed.

He'd do whatever he had to do to make sure it did.

But before he took up his new life, he needed to lay his old one to rest. Putting his hand on Teal'c's shoulder, he asked quietly, "Sejem secher hereh, neswet. Would you join me in this ritual?"

"It would be my honor," Teal'c replied.

Saving the world could wait until his good-byes were said.

Daniel watched, unseen, as his mirror-self and Teal'c lit candles and chanted all-too-familiar words of blessing and grief. He continued to watch as Fraiser took the other Daniel in hand, checking him over from one end to the other. Teal'c stood by, and when she was finished, he took the exhausted man to his own quarters. Stripped him down. Washed him off. Settled him in bed, then settled himself down beside him, dark eyes staring into his face.

What he saw, Daniel didn't know. Possibilities, perhaps. Paths not taken, or not yet chosen. Perhaps his future. It was all a matter of perspective. He glanced over at Oma, smiling down at the pair in the room, softly lit by candles. Her calm bled through him, and for the first time since he'd learned what Anubis was, he felt a measure of peace.

They would make it work, he and his other self, and those they cared about. It would be an adjustment on all sides, but it was the only chance any of them had. The only chance he could give them.

He only hoped it would be enough.

End