WORLD ENOUGH, AND TIME: AN ALTERNATE REALITY NOVEL BY BIBLIO
CHAPTER 15: SERPENTS

CHAPTER  15: SERPENTS

The cold burned in Daniel's nose and throat as he stepped out of the Stargate. As soon as he was clear, Jack checked him off some mental check-list and hustled him on to his next task, which was identifying the seventh symbol on the DHD while everyone but their prisoner and his watchful guard began to fan out and start in on various complicated, Jack-coordinated military things.

It had been impressed upon Daniel by everyone from General Hammond right the way on down to Sgt. Brown that this was a combat mission. This meant his job was to stay where everyone could see him and to not worry them about what he was doing.

After several edgy minutes trying to avoid looking at or thinking much about the problematic Captain Hansen and their odiously supercilious god Seth, Daniel unilaterally decided having a good look around the immediate vicinity of the Stargate satisfied the emphatically expressed instruction of Jack, Sam, Kawalsky, Ferretti and Sgt. Brown.

This alien sky was so leaden and overcast, he couldn't tell what time of day it was, dense water vapour visibly saturating the glacial air. When he had oriented himself, he found the Stargate stood on a dais in a wide, gravelled clearing, at the heart of a circle of sharp, grey standing stones spiralling out from it. They were surrounded by dark alpine forest, steep stony ridges and rearing snow-capped mountains. This bleak homeworld of Apophis looked a hard place, the landscape too dark and cold to be beautiful.

It was immediately clear to Daniel that despite its apparent geographic isolation, the Stargate formed the core of a ceremonial location. The arrangement of the standing stones was an artfully deliberate echo of the great stone circle of the gate itself.

It made complete sense to him the 'gods' would draw on the power and mystique of the Stargate as their own, that it would be an integral part of the spiritual culture of the Goa'uld and their dependent human slaves.

Even he, historically literate and technologically sophisticated as he was, found the Stargate magical. It truly awed him. How much greater, then, the effect on people kept purposefully ignorant, faithful and enslaved?

Looking around him, he felt confident acknowledging this as a place of worship.

Sadly, even for him, excitement was too much of an emotional stretch when his nearest and dearest were loading the site of worship for bear, industriously planting mines all over every available surface in any conceivable direction.

Daniel was interestedly filming the Stargate and its environs when Ferretti emerged from the tree line at a brisk trot and made for Jack and Kawalsky.

"Let's go, Daniel," Hansen ordered at once, keeping a very tight leash on Seth as he headed for their converging teammates. "It looks like Ferretti found something."

Hearing his name jarred Daniel and he realised in some confusion he hadn't given Hansen permission, that the man had just assumed...

He told everyone to call him Daniel. But not Hansen, though, and he couldn’t think why.

"We'll have to set up camp where there's better cover," Kawalsky was saying to Jack as Daniel drew near.

"Ferretti has found what looks like a trail," Jack brought them up to speed as Sam and Brown came within earshot.

"Looks like it's seen traffic in the last couple of days," Ferretti told them.

"Carter?" Jack enquired.

"I've set up a line of claymores along the ridge at ten meter intervals, Sir," Sam confirmed.

"Sound about right, Kawalsky?" Jack asked with telegraphed sarcasm.

"Yeah, that'll work."

Not in the mood for their baiting, Sam shot them a disgusted look.

Daniel took this opportunity to insinuate himself into the discussion. "For lots of reasons I'm sure you don't want me to go into, I believe the Stargate has spiritual significance." Depressingly, they all looked grateful for his consideration. "I think the reason the trail has seen traffic recently is that people, possibly priests, come here to worship."

No one argued with his deduction, which was both pleasing and slightly worrying at the same time. He wasn't used to being taken on faith or to having such immediate and potentially fatal consequences to his poorer judgement calls.

"This city you told us about?" Jack shot at Seth. "Chulak? It's down the trail, right?"

"Only a fool asks questions to which he already knows the answer."

"I'll take that as a yes," Jack said briskly. "In which case, even if we were dumb enough to march down a trail in broad daylight..."

"We won't be caught dead walking down that one," Kawalsky finished for him. It was possible he was expecting a reaction to his amusing play on words, but it seemed Sam wasn't the only one who wasn't in the mood.

It was probably the helmets, Daniel decided sourly. If the Air Force had come up with a lighter way to repel bullets, he hadn't found it. Jack, who had forcibly put the damned thing on Daniel's head with his own two hands, was adding insult to probable neck injury by flagrantly wearing his comfy cap.

"Then I guess we take a course parallel to the trail," Jack decided. "Ferretti, take point while Carter and Brown cover our six. Maintain noise discipline."

As they shifted into position and prepared to move off, Kawalsky took control of F.R.E.D, which was carrying all of their mission equipment, ordnance and rations. He tucked himself in behind Ferretti, while Jack waited until Hansen had passed him leading Seth. Jack meant to keep Hansen and Seth where he could watch them both.

Daniel went automatically to the safest spot in the group, which was basically right behind wherever Jack was. He might be soaked, frozen and quite worried about things, but at least he could enjoy the view.

Of course, once they'd scrambled up the slippery ridge and penetrated into murky forest, their aching caution and rigidly enforced silence meant Daniel had nothing to do but think as they eased their way through the dense trees and bristling undergrowth.

Unfortunately, he wasn't thinking about anything useful or distractingly pornographic.

He wasn't even particularly coherent in his fixation.

His dislike of Jonas Hansen was inexplicable in its randomness and intensity. Hansen was not the only soldier Daniel knew or even the worst of them. He had worked harder to minimise innocent casualties on his mission than Jack had on Abydos, personally he had been pleasanter and more respectful to Daniel than either Kawalsky or Ferretti, yet he liked them and he couldn’t like Hansen.

He was aware of his prejudice but didn’t care to try to overcome it. Trying to justify it or even explain it simply drove him to think in circles, turning endlessly back in on himself.

He caught a glint of metal from the corner of his eye, instinctively tracking its brief, tight arc through the air. A ball of some kind, a metal ball hitting the ground in front of Jack. In the middle of them all.

"Aww, crap!" Jack groaned as they scattered, painfully slow.

Light flared with great force and a low-pitched, whining scream that punched through them. Jack and then Hansen fell to the ground in front of Daniel as he lost all control, all sense of his body, dropped where he stood.

Lost himself...

Numb and slow, Daniel struggled to marshal scattering thoughts, to open heavy eyes. There was stone beneath his cheek, piercing cold, strong light. It was fear that moved him, jerking him awake when the light began to fade from him. He tried to lift his head but it took too much effort. Instead he screwed open his eyes, squinting at a pitted black floor that pitched and swam as his vision wavered and dimmed.

He saw feet and legs, coming closer, snap after snap of them, separate dizzying images without coherence or sense, then fingers trailing the stone in front of his face.

"Daniel?"

There's nothing in it for you.

"Take it easy."

Nothing in it.

The hand reached for him and then he could move, he struck at it, cringing back and back until his shoulders dug into wall behind him. He braced his wrists, pushing himself up from the floor as the man came for him.

He looked up, looked into Jonas Hansen's acute eyes. There was an instant of frightening recognition, mutual understanding of Daniel's panic.

Hansen knew he scared Daniel.

He knew.

Then hands closed around Hansen's throat, hauled him first to his feet and then off them.

"Pray to your god," Seth warned, his eyes burning.

Daniel found his voice.

"Jack!"

He pushed himself up the wall onto legs that shook, then stumbled forward with no idea what he would do.

"You fear him more than you fear me," Seth stated.

Daniel only had time to know Seth was right when two hooded metal cobras with glowing red eyes appeared either side of the struggle. Over-sized snake heads with the bodies of men, armoured men. Guards. One chopped viciously at Seth's knees with his staff weapon but the Goa'uld didn't loose his stranglehold on Hansen.

There was a sound, difficult to describe, but once heard, never forgotten.

Daniel had not heard the sound in months, Seth in millennia, but both of them froze.

It was the sound of a staff weapon being readied to fire and it came from a third man who stood flanked by yet more guards at the entrance to what Daniel realised was a cell. A black man with a sinuous gold serpent tattoo in the middle of his forehead, he was massive and icily impassive, letting the armed staff say all that was required.

His eyes flaring, Seth dropped Hansen contemptuously, then turned arrogantly to confront the newcomer. "Jaffa! Kree!" he snarled, incensed at this insolent display of power. "Kneel before your god Seth."

"I bow before the Serpent God Apophis and no other," the man replied in measured bass tones. "Nor do I owe obeisance to a god fallen so low among the Goa'uld as you."

"I have returned to reclaim what is mine," Seth retorted swiftly.

Daniel caught a soft, blurred movement in his peripheral vision and bit back a relieved sound. He wasn't alone any longer.

"With only these few followers?" The man raised an insultingly ironic eyebrow.

"We're not with him," Daniel couldn't help but point out. "In fact, he's our prisoner."

"As you are now mine," the man replied equably.

"Hear me, First Prime," Seth ordered. "Tell your Lord Apophis that Seth pledges his allegiance and offers to him these prisoners in good faith."

"You cannot give my Lord those he has already taken," the man, the First Prime, countered.

"They are not all," Seth said dismissively. "I bring news of the Supreme System Lord Ra that may benefit Apophis greatly. And there is yet more." Seth smiled, sleekly confident. "If Apophis would know tidings of the First World, he will speak with me."

The First Prime's dark, steady eyes shifted from Seth to Daniel. "You claim these are of the Tau'ri?" he asked softly.

"Apophis will hear me." Seth folded arrogant arms across his chest.

"If Apophis has any sense, he'll hear us," a cool, compelling voice contradicted.

Jack!

"This snake has no authority over us here and no power or influence in the world we come from." Jack strolled forward, planting himself between the First Prime and Seth with a greater arrogant certainty than even the Goa'uld could manage. "I have plenty of both. If your god is willing to negotiate, then he negotiates with me. Colonel Jack O'Neill."

"I am Teal'c, First Prime of Apophis." Teal'c looked thoughtfully at Jack. "My Lord..."

"Will never negotiate with a human," Daniel anticipated the man, scared Jack was about to sacrifice himself in some misguided act of heroism to try to save the rest of them. "Apophis sees humans as slaves, not equals," he argued forcefully, doing his utmost to cut the ground out from under the First Prime's arguments before he could even attempt to play them. "We're nothing more than tools to him."

A hand clamped over his mouth and his heart stopped.

Hansen.

"Tools, slaves, however he thinks of us, Apophis has to know we possess valuable intelligence or we'd be dead already." Hansen's confidence was superb. "I was the one who captured Seth and dispersed his followers, the one who lured him here to face your Lord. If Apophis is looking to deal, then he should deal with me."

"Jaffa! Take them!" Teal'c ordered at once, seeming to take Hansen at his word. The guards grabbed Seth and Hansen, more of them pouring into the cell to force the others back while their First Prime withdrew with his prisoners.

Jack bellowed protest, Sam's voice rising with his, everyone shouting. Daniel was shaking too hard to make sense of them, fumbling backwards until he found the wall again. He slid down and buried his face against his huddled knees, gasping for breath as the cell quietened.

"Daniel?" Sam's anxiety intruded, then her hand, gentle in his hair. "Are you okay?"

"No," he mumbled through numbed lips. "Sorry."

There was another hand then, this one equally gentle at his shoulder.

"Hey, Dr. J." This was Lou Ferretti. "This is not like you."

"We're not going to let anything happen to you," Sam promised, meaning it even if it was beyond her power to make good.

"It's not that," he assured them.

"Then what is it?"

Daniel looked up at Jack.

"Hansen," he said in a strained voice. "It's nothing good, Jack."

"He was trying to protect us," Sam objected.

"He wanted out," Daniel argued, still caught up in that moment of recognition where Hansen had looked right inside him and known the reason for his panic.

"Why would he possibly?" Sam stammered in bewilderment.

"He wanted out!" Daniel bit at her, not sure, not sure of anything now.

Nothing in it for you.

Nothing in it.

Hansen...

Fingers trailing stone.

Trailing blood.

"Jack!" Daniel gasped, hammered by memories coming at him too thick and fast for him to separate or make sense of them. Sounds, sounds he heard and sounds he made. Jonas Hansen tangled with all of them.

"Okay, so we watch him," Kawalsky offered Daniel matter-of-fact reassurance. "When the King of the Snake People sends him back to us, we watch him."

"You do that," Ferretti quietly backed Daniel up. "Because I was watching him back there and I have to agree with Daniel. Whatever was on Hansen's mind, it wasn't us." He squeezed Daniel's shoulder reassuringly. "I was close enough I heard what Seth said to Daniel. I couldn't lift my head, couldn't see a damned thing, but I heard him just fine."

"What?" Anxiety for Daniel's evident distress made Jack cutting. "What did you hear?"

"Heard him say he knew Daniel was more scared of Hansen than of him."

"I think I know why," Daniel confessed in a strained, miserable tone. "But I can't prove anything. I never saw him, it was only his voice I heard. I don't remember it all, even now. Only – only the sounds of it. I just – I believe it was him."

"I'm sorry, Daniel, I'm not following?" Sam apologised for her confusion.

"Take a breath, Daniel," Jack advised him gently. "Then spell it out slow for the hard of thinking."

"Hansen," Daniel faltered to Jack. "He was the man who attacked me. I remember, Jack. 'There's nothing in it for you', that's what he said to me before he...before..." His voice broke completely and he thought to his horror he might cry, pressing the heels of his cold hands against his eyes. It seemed the worst thing, that Hansen was taking from him even now. "I remember," he whispered.

"Hansen did that to you?" Jack's voice was so ugly, so angry, Daniel barely recognised it.

"I can't prove it," he said again, trying very hard to keep it together, to keep the clamouring memories back.

"You know it?" Jack asked insistently.

It was not an easy thing to do, but Jack was asking this of him, so Daniel took his hands away, lifted his head. He remembered Hansen's gloved fingers stroking through his blood on the ground and felt sick to his stomach.

"I know it."

That was all Jack needed from Daniel. His word was good enough.

"Jonas?" Sam sounded as if her voice was coming from miles away and she slumped suddenly, leaning on Daniel more than she was supporting him. "We never did know why Daniel was found lying on my doorstep or if the attack was meant for him or for me," she babbled.

"Both," Ferretti said quickly. "I'm sorry, Sam."

"Daniel doesn’t need to prove it. Jonas did it. We all know it, don't we?" Sam recognised, so appalled she could barely look at them. "You've known him a day and you..." She bowed her head dejectedly, choking on the awful truth of it, that the man she had almost married was capable of torturing someone she cared for, a stranger to him, a man who'd never done any harm, for the supposed crime of being her friend.

"I'm sorry," Daniel whispered to her.

"No!" she said fiercely. "I'm sorry! I should have stood up to him sooner than I did. I should have..."

"Coulda, woulda, shoulda," Jack sing-songed mockingly, doing the best he could for Daniel's sake not to take out his murderous rage on their closest link to Hansen but not quite making it.

Sam's head snapped up, angry words of her own boiling.

"It's a game we all play, Carter," Jack grated. "And frankly, this is not about you."

"Yeah," Kawalsky nodded taut agreement. "Let it go, Sam. And you?" His hand hugged Daniel's knee. "You've got good instincts." He believed in Daniel too.

"Not good enough," Daniel retorted, feeling a little better. "It wasn't so much that I understood I was afraid of Hansen, it was that he knew why. I thought I was losing it, I was questioning, but he didn't have to."

"Suck it up, Carter," Jack advised her as she struggled with it. "We have bigger problems than your ex right now."

"Speaking of which," Brown called urgently. "Sirs!"

Jack rose smoothly to his feet, spinning around and ready for confrontation as the iron grate barring their cell slid open. Apophis' First Prime stood there, his guards lined up in a row behind him, their staff weapons activating as he strode into the cell.

Teal'c looked keenly, searchingly, at all of them in turn as Daniel, Sam and Ferretti scrambled up and the team lined up behind Jack, united in facing the man down. Teal'c said nothing at first. He only carefully unfolded Daniel's glasses and lifted them up to the light, looking through the lenses.

"Those are mine," Daniel told him.

Teal'c held them out to him but Daniel didn't make it past Sam, who stepped solidly in front of him and refused to budge while Jack went forward to take the glasses.

If this was a trap, it wasn't an obvious one.

Jack was wary, but Daniel was vulnerable without his glasses so he was willing to take a small risk to get them back. He reached out slowly, his hands spread wide, making it clear he wasn't trying anything. Teal'c moved quickly, quicker and smoother than anyone Daniel had ever seen, startling even Jack as he took his wrist in a crushing grip.

"What is this?" Teal'c asked Jack, staring at his wrist.

"This?" It took Jack a second to work out what the man meant. "It's a watch."

"A device for telling time," Daniel explained quickly.

"This is not Goa'uld technology," Teal'c replied. "Where are you from?"

"Earth. I was born in Chicago and raised in Minnesota, if you really want the specifics," Jack recited laconically.

Teal'c tightened his grip until the breath hissed between Jack's clenched teeth. Kawalsky was getting the distinctive cat-on-hot-bricks edginess that told Daniel he was about to start something nasty

"Your words mean nothing to me," Teal'c said coldly. "Where are you from?"

"Um, excuse me?" Daniel interrupted, neatly faking out Sam to sidestep her and dart forward. He knelt down, sketching out with his finger the Stargate symbol for Earth against the stone floor while Teal'c watched him intently. Daniel looked up hopefully, meeting Teal'c's eyes.

Satisfied, the First Prime released Jack.

"Ow," Jack complained, making a show of rubbing his wrist.

Teal'c held out the glasses to Daniel, who stood and slowly took them from him.

"You should know that we're not slaves of the Goa'uld," Daniel said quietly, so the guards wouldn't hear.

"Anyone who does not live to serve the gods is their enemy," Teal'c informed them with blunt honesty.

"You should also know that the Goa'uld are no more gods than I am," Jack retorted, his face dark with abhorrence. "They're slimy parasites in a stolen human host."

When Teal'c failed to react in shock and anger to this direct attack on his faith and his god, they understood immediately they weren't telling him anything he didn't already know.

"Seth said you were Jaffa?" Daniel hinted, taking heart.

"And that makes you?" Jack asked.

"Bred to serve, that they may live."

"I don't understand," Daniel admitted.

"Jaffa!" Teal'c called.

One of the guards handed over his staff weapon and came running forward to pull off the heavy, tooled breastplate of his armour. Beneath it he wore chain mail, woven into an unusual pattern of four overlapping panels over his abdomen. He parted these panels and they could see a huge, clean-edged scar criss-crossing his belly.

Something white showed in the centre of the cross, pushing outwards.

It was a snout, white-grey, translucent, obscenely alien. Jack and Daniel gasped and fell back in instinctive revulsion as the slimy eel-like creature retreated slowly into its concealing pouch.

The man – the Jaffa – covered himself, picked up his armour and ran back to his position outside of the cell.

"What the hell is that?" Jack demanded, horrified.

"It is an infant Goa'uld, the larval form of the gods," Teal'c explained. "I too have carried one since I was a child, as have all Jaffa."

"Get it out of there." Jack barely suppressed another shudder.

"In exchange for carrying the infant Goa'uld until maturity, a Jaffa receives perfect health and long life," Teal'c asserted. "If I were to remove it, I would weaken and die."

"If this larval form of the Goa'uld has the same healing properties as the adult parasite," Sam speculated. "Then it would explain the health benefits to these Jaffa. It must somehow boost or maybe even replace their natural immune system. This begins to explain how Seth was able to heal as quickly as he did."

"Yeah, well," Jack said uneasily. "If I were you, I'd take my chances," he advised Teal'c with absolute sincerity. "Although I'd say you were taking a pretty big chance already, just by talking to us."

"I think Teal'c is trying to determine if we're the Tau'ri that Seth promised Apophis we are," Daniel suggested boldly.

"I agree," Jack remarked with a hard look at Teal'c. "But I'm more interested in why you want to know if we are."

Teal'c looked enigmatically back at him.

"If you're a spy, you're a frighteningly obvious one." Jack grinned fiendishly. "All these direct questions, all those inconvenient witnesses."

"It is not my questions you should fear but those of my Lord," Teal'c reminded them.

"That's a meeting I'd prefer to avoid," Jack told him frankly. "Anything you can do about that?" he fired at Teal'c.

"I serve Apophis."

"Because," Daniel guessed, "those who do not serve, die."

Teal'c's broad, handsome face was unreadable, but something flared in those deep, knowing eyes.

"Seth believes we're the Tau'ri." Daniel went on instincts he was just beginning to trust. "That we're from this First World he spoke of. I don't know for certain if we are the Tau'ri but I can tell you that from the fossil – I mean the historical record - we have proof man evolved on Earth and I can be pretty sure your ancestors were brought from there and enslaved by the Goa'uld much as the people of Abydos were."

"That snake in your belly?" Jack challenged Teal'c. "Never happen where we come from. Never. Our people would fight to the death against slavery like that."

"The deaths of your people may be imminent," Teal'c said grimly.

"I don't think so," Jack contradicted. "Ra thought the same damned thing but he's the one who wound up dead. He took just a handful of us on and we beat him. Then we took Seth on and captured him."

"Our technology, our weapons, are advanced," Sam spoke up. "Our civilisation hasn't been held back in the same way yours has. Reading and writing, science and mathematics, those are not forbidden to us."

"We can promise Apophis a helluva fight," Jack asserted aggressively. "If he tries to take Earth, it'll cost him a lot more than we're worth."

"Myself, I'm not so interested in ways to fight and die," Daniel interjected. "I'm all about ways to live. And I promise you, we..." He gestured at himself and Jack, at their teammates. "All of us live in freedom."

"Do you have a family?" Jack demanded of Teal'c. "A wife? Children? And you're content to see them live as slaves to a greedy, loveless parasite that uses their faith to keep them down?"

"Can't you help us?" Daniel pleaded softly, hoping somehow they were getting through.

"Can you get us out of here?" Going on the same instinct as Daniel, Jack was not afraid to ask right out.

"I cannot."

Daniel believed him. It was a step too far, too soon.

"Then can you get us our stuff back?" Jack persisted.

Neither Jack nor Daniel could read Teal'c's expression as he turned abruptly away from them and marched from the cell, his troops forming up behind him as he stalked away.

"Did we do anything there?" Kawalsky asked in frustration as the heavy booted steps echoed down the bleak hallway. "Did he hear us?"

"Honestly?" Jack shrugged. "I don’t know."

"We just gave him an awful lot of information if he isn't on our side on some level," Sam sighed.

"Nothing he and his god aren't going to get out of Seth and Hansen anyway," Jack told her, not exactly reassuringly.

"I think the biggest risk was telling Teal'c that he'd been worshipping a parasitic alien pretender passing itself off as his god," Daniel noted.

"I noticed he didn't exactly keel over in shock at that," Kawalsky commented dryly, heading up a general drift floor-wards. Their own asses were the only seating they possessed; their cell was long on stark threat and short on prisoner comforts.

"How bad does Hansen have us jammed up, Colonel?" Ferretti wanted to know.

"We're guessing Hansen wanted out because he knew Daniel knew he'd attacked him and the rest of us were going to want to deal with that fairly directly. Beyond that?" Jack looked to Sam for more.

"Would Jonas betray us?" Sam clarified uncertainly. "I should know," she said helplessly. "I should have an answer to that question and I don't. I should be more surprised than I am Jonas was capable of hurting Daniel so badly or that he'd want to hurt me." It took a lot for her to lift her head and look them in the eye, but she was proud and they were her team, a part of her now. She did it. "I recommend we treat him as compromised, Sirs."

"Oh, I think that goes without saying," Jack drawled with leaden sarcasm.

"Whether he would sell us out, I can't say." She chewed the inside of her cheek, trying to weigh up what she knew of the man, trying to make the right call, the safe call for her team. "He likes games," she decided. "He's always working an angle, working people."

"The way he waltzed right into the SGC and got in Daniel's face, he's not the shy type," Jack acknowledged. "He took a huge risk and it paid off."

"He's good at risks," Sam said eagerly, finding a small way to contribute. "He does make them pay off. He's talented."

"Calculated risks," Daniel elaborated. "Hansen is controlled, he doesn't rush in."

"Then based on everything we know about him, he's working an angle of some kind here," Jack decided. "Only, we don't know what it is."

"Yet," Kawalsky said tightly.

"Sirs?" Brown, their self-appointed watch-man called out. "Someone's coming."

"The big guy?" Jack queried.

Brown pressed his face against the iron grate, angling for a better view down the hallway. "An old guy."

They got to their feet and turned to face this new problem, not ready to hope Teal'c was coming through for them, but not willing to give up on their best – and at this point only - chance for escape.

The man who now stood just beyond the bars of their cell, just beyond their reach, was old, but he was no weakling. He moved with an easy, practiced grace, his lined face wise, commanding. His age was mostly written in his eyes, a strength there and also a serenity seeming at odds with the armour he wore like a second skin. Like the Jaffa guards he'd brought with him, he wore the heavy armour and chain mail with a close-fitting metal skull cap, but where their tattoos were rudimentary black, the one he bore on his forehead was of gold, like Teal'c's. The guards treated him with more than respect; they showed deference, a kind of reverence to him.

He walked slowly down the line the team had automatically formed on the opposite side of the bars to him, weighing each of them up much as Teal'c had, and giving as little away of his reaction. He turned and murmured an instruction too indistinct for Daniel to make out, then the cell grate was opened enough for the guards to slide through and rapidly empty out the contents of the first of several baskets they were carrying.

Their weapons were being returned.

After a stunned moment, Jack went up the few steps to stand close by the grate. "Thank you," he said seriously to the old man. "You won't regret this."

"You cannot know the substance or the sum of my regrets, Tau'ri," the old man replied sternly. "Only know that if you fail, none of us will live to regret this." He turned on his heel and marched away, the guards obediently following.

"They don't exactly encourage those guys to question their superiors, do they?" Ferretti asked no one in particular, helping himself to his MP-5.

"You feel fresh air coming in from those windows?" Jack asked briskly as he secreted various weapons about his person.

Windows? Daniel glanced around in surprise, berating himself for his lack of observation. He'd been too upset, too wrapped up in his personal problems to notice anything except how thick the bars of their cell were.

Brown hissed quick warning. As heavy, booted steps rang out yet again in the hallway, they sprang into action, hiding their weapons and vests behind them as they sat or lay against the wall.

No one moved or even looked up when the cell was opened and Jonas Hansen was dragged in. He was out cold, lying with his arms stretched out over his head exactly where the guards left him, the upper part of his face, his forehead, looking as if it had been burned. They waited out the guards, ignoring Hansen until they were left completely alone.

And then Jack was across the cell in a heartbeat, hefting up Hansen by the throat to backhand him viciously across the face, the mark of his fingers spreading red against Hansen's pallid cheek.

"Colonel," Kawalsky protested mildly, not moving a muscle. "We do need him able to walk."

Sam was feeling so compromised by her relationship and her blindness with regard to Hansen she couldn't say anything, so it was up to Daniel to intervene, to tell Jack this wasn't right. "We have no proof of anything," he pleaded as Jack hit Hansen again.

Jack didn't waste breath arguing. His third hard blow snapped Hansen back to semi-consciousness, then he and Kawalsky hauled him to his feet.

"What did you tell them?" Kawalsky demanded, violently shaking Hansen, who only stared sluggishly back at him, stunned almost senseless by whatever had been done to him by Apophis. Kawalsky made a disgusted noise and curtly summoned Brown to support Hansen while he and Jack went over to examine the wall of their cell. There was obviously no question they were taking Hansen with them, even though he was going to slow their escape terribly.

"C-4," Jack decided.

"I should help Hansen," Daniel said thickly as they set explosives against the wall. "I'm the non-combatant." He didn't want to do it, he could barely even get the words out, but he owed it to the others to help them as best he could.

Jack looked around at him as if he would argue, then he saw sense and nodded curt assent.

Daniel helped Brown steer Hansen over to farthest corner and huddled with him and Sam while the others piled in against them and Jack detonated the C-4. The explosion was thunderous, the force of it mashing them against the stone. Then Sam's quick hand was at Daniel's elbow, pulling him around to find a gaping hole and daylight pouring through.

They ran.

Jack and Kawalsky led the way, Sam and Ferretti covered the rear, Daniel and Brown dragging Hansen along with them. The first fury of adrenaline and fear saw them burst in among the trees at the edge of the blanketing forest, then the clear sound of a horn, an alarm, drove them on.

There was nothing then but burning lungs, their pounding feet and treacherous footing as they plunged down a narrow gully that wound between the overhanging trees. Daniel didn't know where they were going, he only knew where Jack was. He kept his eyes fixed on Jack's straight back, ran where he ran, slowed when he slowed.

It seemed impossible to him there could be a place they were running to. Only keeping Jack in sight took everything he had. Everything.

When they dove to the ground and staff weapons blazed overhead, Daniel found the immediacy of fear easier to take than dulling exhaustion grinding him down.

He never let go of Hansen, never lost sight of Jack, ran on and on, hit the ground each time as their most visible target, willingly drew fire down on him while his friends picked off their pursuers, got to his feet and ran again, slower each time and that bit more clumsy than before.

He wanted to let Hansen fall and run clear of him. It was harder than he thought it could be, hanging on.

Then Jack pulled up short, Daniel staggered and fell forward, pathetically grateful for the quick hands pulling him back up until he saw who they belonged to.

"Where are we?" Hansen demanded in a low, furious undertone, looking around him in blank astonishment.

"I have no idea," Daniel said tightly, pushing away from the man with a shudder of loathing. He made his way over to Jack, wanting to let him know Hansen was up and strong enough to keep up on his own. When he got closer, he could see they had intersected with a wide trail cutting through the heart of the forest.

"It takes us in the right direction," Jack was whispering to Kawalsky when Daniel hunkered down beside him.

"You want to risk it, Sir?" Kawalsky asked.

"No, but I want to make it back to the Stargate before Apophis' Jaffa get entrenched in defensive positions and we're completely cut-off." Jack bit his lip, scowling at the trail. "The fact they don’t have decent road surfaces tells us we aren't facing any kind of armoured vehicle and we've covered so much ground, we're way ahead of foot pursuit."

"Gliders like on Ra's planet?"

"Eventually, they'll find us."

"Most of our defensive capability is buried in the ground around the Stargate," Kawalsky reminded him. "If we can reach it, then we can hold 'em off until we dial out and evac."

"Sold," Jack decided, turning to make hand signals at the rest of the team. He ignored the elephant in the room until he was done with communicating the necessary instructions and their teammates had signalled back to him their understanding of his orders. "Hansen..."

"Is awake and under his own steam again," Daniel finished for him, cutting him off before his rant got going. "That's what I came to tell you."

Jack reached out for him, gave his neck an affectionate rub, then slapped him lightly on the cheek. "We're gonna make it," he promised. There was no time for more, certainly not for anger or vengeance. Jack got up and led his people on.

Once they were in the open, they spread out to improve their chances against ambush or strafing from any gliders that might appear overhead, and then Jack made them run their hearts out for him, the pace he set punishing even if they had been fresh. They were far from that, vomit rising to sting the back of Daniel's mouth as he panted for air, too beat to fight Hansen's pragmatic help.

They ran so long Daniel couldn't fathom the time. He didn't know anything, least of all how he was keeping going. When Jack stopped without warning, he stopped blindly, unquestioning, doubling over to puke up his insides right there in the dirt. He heard a staff weapon blast and a body thudded to the ground right by him. He shied away, dashing a shaking hand across his mouth, scarcely realising it was Hansen who'd fallen.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jack roared, pointing his weapon at the man who'd appeared from nowhere on the trail and fired on them.

The First Prime. Teal'c.

"That one is not who you believe him to be," Teal'c explained calmly, ignoring the weapons both Jack and Kawalsky were aiming at him. "I sense a presence within him."

"A presence?" Jack snarled.

"He did not break under questioning," Teal'c told him. "Apophis has made him host to a Goa'uld so that he might have a spy among you."

"A Goa'uld? You mean he's got one of those things in him?"

"See for yourself," Teal'c invited Jack.

It was in watching Jack's careful approach to the fallen Hansen that Daniel finally realised the man was dead, a bleeding burn smoking over his chest. Not a sound to associate with the violence this time, but a smell he could never forget. As certain as he was in his own mind Hansen was the one who'd attacked him, Daniel hardly knew what to feel about him being dead.

Jack glanced questioningly at Daniel as he drew near, then the two of them jumped back in shock as Hansen surged up. He was fast, he had always been fast, to think, to act. A true risk-taker. He had his arm around Daniel's throat and Daniel's gun in his hand, was firing on Teal'c before anyone could react.

Daniel saw the First Prime stagger before the arm at his throat began to tighten. He choked for breath and black spots burned before his eyes.

A single shot rang out from behind them and Hansen's leg buckled. He didn't go down, though, he whipped around, bending Daniel's neck at an unbearable angle as he fired. He hit Sam, the shooter, high in the shoulder and she went down hard. Daniel was holding onto Hansen's strangling arm, holding on and falling at the same time.

Then Hansen jerked hard and Daniel would've screamed if he could; he was snapping in two. Hansen jerked again and his arm fell away from Daniel's throat. He simply hung there as Daniel turned unsteadily and backed away. Those acute eyes flared with light and then faded.

It was the point of Jack's knife keeping Hansen upright and now he let him fall, stepping over his body to get to Daniel.

Comforting arms came around Daniel and he wondered if there was blood on Jack's hands, blood on them both, or if it was over too fast for that. He couldn't look away from the knife, its dark utilitarian handle protruding from the base of Hansen's skull.

It occurred to him Jack had killed both the parasite and the man and then he didn't want to think anymore.

"Sam?" he croaked urgently, leaning heavily where Jack pretty much wanted him to be. "Teal'c?"

"We're good to go," Jack promised.

"This way," Teal'c instructed, completely ignoring the hole in his arm.

Daniel caught a glimpse of Brown and Ferretti efficiently carrying Sam between them as Jack turned him around and led him away.

"I can run," he insisted stubbornly to Jack.

"You can carry me, then, because I'm beat," Jack joked.

Daniel couldn't run. None of them could; they'd come too far, too fast. They were frighteningly slow covering the last of the ground that took them up to the Stargate. The sound of horns in the forest was continuous and close behind them, but they were first. They'd beaten Apophis' Jaffa to the gate and they had a chance now.

Ferretti and Brown helped Sam slither safely down the ridge, then picked her up again and ran with her over to the Stargate while Daniel unceremoniously slid down on his ass. They left her propped beside the DHD waiting for Daniel to join her and ran back to take up defensive positions behind strategic standing stones while Jack, Teal'c and Kawalsky picked their own spots.

When the first staff blast struck the ground almost between Daniel's feet, his heart jumped out his mouth and his legs did the pumping. No one was getting out of here unless he dialled the gate. The adrenaline gods blessed him; he felt no pain as he pelted across the clearing, never looking back even when most of the rocky ridge erupted and ballistic dirt rained down on him.

Sam had already shakily started the dialling sequence when Daniel reached her and he hit the seventh symbol hard with the heel of his hand, grabbed her around the waist and began to walk her over to the activating gate.

He'd never been so happy to see anything as Jack's kerwoosh.

"Come on!" Sam screamed encouragement as their friends began to peel away from cover one by one and run for the gate they were holding open for them. "Come on!"

Ferretti reached them, turning to lay down covering fire with Brown as Kawalsky sprinted erratically over the open ground, dodging a volley of staff blasts. Jack and Teal'c made it so far, then another wave of Jaffa reached the top of the ridge and they had to stop to return fire.

"Get outta here!" Ferretti hollered to Daniel and Sam. "Let the general know we're coming in hot!"

Daniel pushed Sam through the gate, then went back to help. He would not leave Jack, he would not leave his friends. He took the only weapon available to him, Ferretti's sidearm, and opened fire on the Jaffa coming closest to Jack and Teal'c.

A glider swooped over the Stargate from behind them, so low the boom of its passage knocked them sprawling to the ground. It opened fire and Daniel found himself screaming out for Jack even as Kawalsky started whooping and cheering. Daniel made it to his feet and couldn't be restrained when he saw Jack running to him while the glider brutally decimated the ranks of the Jaffa.

He met up with Jack part-way and then realised Teal'c wasn't following. "What's he doing?" he gasped as the man stood there, bowed with grief, watching his few remaining comrades die.

"Teal'c!" Jack hollered.

Teal'c looked around at him. "I have no place to go." His dignity was as great as the pain he felt at this betrayal of all he knew.

Jack knew no hesitation. "For this, you can stay at my place!" he yelled.

"We need you!" Daniel added as the last of the Jaffa fell.

The glider trod the air, soaring up only to spin and plummet down to face Teal'c. The First Prime and the old man piloting the glider stared at one another for a few seconds of precious silence and stillness that stretched out to screaming point, then Teal'c bowed to him with the utmost respect and resolutely turned his back on a friend.

"Who is that?" Jack asked when Teal'c joined them.

"Master Bra'tac, formerly First Prime of Apophis," Teal'c said proudly. "My teacher and my friend."

"Mine too," Jack assured him with absolute sincerity. "Now let's get the hell out of Dodge!"

"We are not on Dodge, O'Neill of the Tau'ri." Teal'c quirked a puzzled eyebrow at Jack as he led the way to the waiting Stargate. "This world is named Chulak."

"Gotta work on my punchlines," Jack complained.

"Let's go home," Daniel said quietly. He'd had enough, wanted to stop this world and get off.

Jack smiled at him. "Let's do that."

With Kawalsky, Ferretti and Brown ahead of them and Teal'c beside them, Jack and Daniel walked together through their Stargate.

General Hammond was on the ramp waiting for them. "Close the iris!" he ordered the instant they were clear.

Glancing inquisitively behind him, Jack did a double-take as a slim metal disc formed of many sections slid out to lock securely in place over the Stargate where the event horizon would have formed.

"With these new alien risks we're potentially facing, I've instigated some additional security measures," Hammond informed them.

"I would upgrade potentially facing to definitely facing," Jack advised him soberly. "We may have started a war when we killed Ra. Fortunately..." Ebulliently, he clapped Teal'c on the shoulder. "We brought help! General George Hammond, leader of this facility, meet Teal'c, formerly First Prime of Apophis, which makes him about equal in rank to the President's Chief of Staff."

Teal'c bowed to the general and made no demur when Jack took his staff weapon from him and handed it off to a waiting SF.

"And if you take my recommendation, he'll join SG-1," Jack added incorrigibly, refusing to allow Hammond to take a second or two to adjust to the admittedly larger-than-life presence of his first alien.

"I'll take that under advisement," Hammond replied with more grace and patience than Jack ever mustered for him. "But first, I'd like an explanation of Captain Hansen's whereabouts. Why didn't he return with you?"

"How's Sam?" Daniel interrupted anxiously.

"Captain Carter is being prepped for surgery. Dr. Fraiser and Dr. Warner are confident they can remove the bullet and that in time, her injury will fully heal." Hammond eyed Teal'c's arm questioningly. "You appear to be wounded too." The general was careful, hardly knowing if he was addressing a hostile, a traitor, or an ally.

"I require no assistance," Teal'c refused with polite finality. "The projectile passed through. The injury will heal."

"Hansen is dead." After this shock announcement, Jack dug into a pocket of his vest and produced dog-tags. "We shouldn't talk about it here," he said shortly.

"No," Kawalsky spoke up. "And for what it's worth, General, I'm seconding the colonel's suggestion that Teal'c be allowed to join us."

"We'll de-brief immediately," the general decided.

As the beat up, exhausted members of SG-1 and SG-2 dutifully handed over their weapons, Hammond signalled discreetly to the assembled SFs, but it was hard for anyone, least of all Teal'c, to miss the armed guards who joined their procession up to the briefing room.

Jack and Daniel sat protectively either side of Teal'c, ready to demonstrate all the support for him they could. Ferretti, Kawalsky and Brown aligned themselves down the opposite side of the table.

Proving himself to be a gentleman and a humanitarian, the general sent out for coffee and sandwiches before ordering Jack to make his report.

Knowing how much they had to get through, Jack went quickly over their arrival on Chulak and the events leading to their capture.

"And can I just say that personally, I'm grateful your troops didn't kill us right off," he thanked Teal'c cheerfully.

Then he got back to the point, sketching in broad strokes how Seth had tried to throttle Hansen when they were beginning to regain consciousness in the cell in Apophis' fortress, how Teal'c had put a stop to it and taken Seth and Hansen away for questioning.

General Hammond was clearly unhappy hearing this and somewhat at a loss to understand Jack's gung-ho attitude.

"I won't lose a wink of sleep over Seth," Jack admitted readily. "But Hansen told Teal'c to take him. And you had to take one of us, right?"

"You are correct," Teal'c agreed. "That is the purpose for which I was sent."

"Gentlemen..." Hammond began.

"It was Hansen who attacked me," Daniel said much too loudly. "I realised it when I was coming to. It was something Hansen said to me, General. A particular phrase that stuck in my mind where nothing else from the attack had. Hansen said the same thing to me again and I - I remembered."

"This is a very serious allegation against an Air Force officer who can no longer defend himself," Hammond replied.

"I'm aware," Daniel said jerkily, finding it impossible to explain that single moment of absolute clarity between him and Hansen.

"Serious allegation? Try irrelevant," Jack snapped, immediately firing up in Daniel's defence. "Hansen knew Daniel had remembered the attack, he wanted out and he took the only way out of that cell and away from us he had. Everything that went down after he gave himself up to Apophis is on him."

"Your warrior did not give in to questioning," Teal'c assured Hammond gravely. "He did not betray his comrades to Apophis. I know this to be true because Apophis implanted a symbiote within the man Hansen. He would not have done this had he been able to obtain the answers to his questions by any other means."

"That's something, I guess," Jack admitted grudgingly. "And if you're wondering which one of us killed Hansen, General, stop. I killed him."

Hammond was visibly shocked.

"I think he was fighting," Daniel said tiredly, knotting his fingers. "All that time he was semi-conscious during our escape, I don't believe the parasite was in full control of him. It was only when he came to..."

"He was strong," Teal'c said respectfully.

"Teal'c identified Hansen as a Goa'uld and all hell broke loose," Jack took up his narrative again. "Teal'c had to prove it in the only way he could, which was by shooting Hansen. I was on my way over to check out the 'corpse' on Teal'c's advice when Hansen got up, grabbed Daniel and started shooting. He hit Teal'c in the arm before Carter got him in the back of the kneecap, then he turned around and shot her in the shoulder, almost breaking Daniel's neck in the process, before I could finish him off."

There was tense silence for a second or two. Hammond was preparing himself to ask for the necessary details while the rest of them, having watched Hansen die, did not want to talk about it.

"Quickest way I knew to stop him was to kill the symbiote outright," Jack said in the hard, ugly voice it hurt Daniel to hear from him. "I severed Hansen's spinal cord. He was dead before he hit the ground."

"Apophis has a sarcophagus," Teal'c warned them. "If he wishes it, he will revive both symbiote and host."

"That's a risk Hansen would've taken, symbiote or not," Jack snapped. "I did what I had to do. That thing was too strong to kill any other way and Daniel's life was in danger, Sir."

"The Colonel had no choice," Ferretti and Kawalsky said firmly and together.

"No, Sir!" Brown chimed in.

"We took Hansen with us," Daniel said determinedly. "We tried to save him, even when we knew he was guilty of the attack on me, even when we believed him to be compromised. We didn't leave him behind. No one could."

Hammond's face softened.

"Teal'c and his old teacher helped us escape," Jack promptly took advantage of this moment of weakness. "They got our weapons back to us, then Teal'c met up with us on the trail and escorted us to the Stargate. When the Jaffa caught up with us, it was Master Bra'tac who flew air support, took them out from his glider."

"And if you're wondering about it, Sir, Jack went back for Teal'c," Daniel said firmly. "He didn't ask or expect to go with us. He was ready to hold the Stargate while we escaped and face the consequences of defying his god."

"And I for one learned all I needed to know in that moment in order to trust him," Jack stated aggressively.

"Why?" Hammond asked Teal'c directly. "What made you help my people and turn against your own?"

"I am Jaffa," Teal'c replied softly. "I have served as a warrior for your enemy. I carry your enemy within me. But I am not your enemy. Never again will I bow to a false god and I will live as a slave no longer. General Hammond, I will give my knowledge of the Goa'uld freely," he swore solemnly. "I will pledge my allegiance to this world and prove my honour in battle against the Goa'uld. I will fight at your side so that in time all Jaffa may live free."

"The Jaffa aren't our enemies," Daniel supported Teal'c. "Any more than the cultists brainwashed by Seth were our enemies. They've been enslaved for generations by parasites posing as their gods, demanding their unquestioning, uneducated loyalty, obedience and worship. They deserve our help."

"And they're going to get it," Jack stated unequivocally. "Because we already took the fight to the Goa'uld when we killed Ra."

"O'Neill is correct," Teal'c volunteered. "The death of the Supreme System Lord will incite war between those Goa'uld System Lords of lesser rank who will seek dominion over all that was once his."

"Who are these System Lords?" Hammond enquired, frowning as he tried to assimilate all of this new information.

"Apophis you know of," Teal'c replied. "Chronos, the greatest enemy of Apophis, has amassed a vast fleet of ha'tak..."

"Ha'tak?" Daniel queried.

"Ships."

"Like the pyramid ship Ra had?" Kawalsky asked.

Teal'c inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Nirrti, Lord Yu, Heru'ur, Bastet, Morrigan, Olokun, Kali and Ba'al are all among the first rank of System Lords. All will seek to take power."

"Apophis is our most immediate threat," Jack reminded everyone. "What's his position?"

"Setesh is among the most hunted Goa'uld of all time," Teal'c explained after due consideration. "The murder of Osiris and his queen Isis was a crime even the System Lords would not tolerate. In capturing Setesh, Apophis has succeeded where all others have failed. He will gain respect and influence among them."

"Okay." Jack looked and sounded flattened. "So that was a mistake, then."

"Apophis is also the first to know of the death of Ra and thus is best placed among the System Lords to seize that advantage for himself."

"Strike two," Kawalsky muttered.

"From Setesh, Apophis will discover the location of this world and seek to destroy the Tau'ri and the Stargate."

"In order to win more friends and influence people," Jack sighed.

"In order to punish the Tau'ri for their murder of the Supreme System Lord Ra and for their insolence in once again opening the Chappa'ai," Teal'c dutifully corrected. He appeared to have a limited appreciation of irony.

"Chappa'ai?" Jack murmured in Daniel's direction.

"Stargate."

"So, basically, whichever way we look at it, we're screwed," Ferretti deduced.

They hardly needed the shrill punctuation of a sudden alarm.

"What is that?" Jack yelped as the general raced for the stairs down to the control room.

"Unscheduled off-world activation, Sir," one of the hovering guards explained helpfully as they ran past.

"Very loud. Very annoying," Jack had to point out, despite the tension.

They piled into the control room as the defence teams raced into the gateroom and took up position. The iris was already closed over the centre of the dialling gate.

"Inbound traveller!" Sgt. Harriman urgently informed the general.

"They've found us," Daniel said stupidly as they heard the wormhole engage behind the protective iris. Its light was clearly visible dappling the walls of the silo with blue. "I mean, no one else knows we're here."

"Set the base auto-destruct for five minutes," Hammond ordered.

"I've been dead before," Daniel commented, hardly knowing what he was saying.

Jack's hand, which appeared to have the same telepathic qualities as its wonderful owner, made hugging contact with Daniel's shoulder.

"It's not much fun," Daniel told him. "Being dead."

"Noted," Jack said gently, keeping his hand where it was, on Daniel.

"What can we expect?" Hammond asked of Teal'c.

"Apophis will send a weapon of mass destruction through the Chappa'ai."

"Set the Destroyer really stood up under questioning," Daniel complained bitterly, eyeing his watch.

"What kind of a weapon?" Jack showed some professional interest.

"The Goa'uld do not share the secrets of their magic with slaves."

"Magic?"

"It's the whole god thing," Daniel said impatiently. "Hard to keep the worshippers suitably ignorant if you go around gratuitously teaching them things."

"He gets snippy," Jack explained confidentially to Teal'c, who didn't understand him.

There were several loud thuds against the iris. Sgt. Harriman and all the other technicians in the control room flinched.

"So, this iris is going to hold, right?" Jack snapped at Harriman, showing a decent amount of concern for the first time.

"It's pure titanium, Colonel," Harriman assured him. "Less than three micrometers from the event horizon. It won't even allow matter to fully integrate."

"So..." Jack scowled. "This iris is going to hold, right?"

"If it doesn’t," Hammond replied sardonically. "The failsafe device will detonate, Cheyenne Mountain will vaporise and there'll be nothing for any of us to worry about."

The Stargate abruptly deactivated.

"Speaking of the failsafe device," Daniel enunciated with freezing politeness. "Is someone going to get that?"

"Colonel?" Hammond beckoned Jack forward. "It requires the command codes of two senior officers to override the auto-destruct."

While Jack was taking care of this trifling detail, Daniel sidled over to Teal'c. "Can we expect more of this?"

"One, perhaps two more attacks before Apophis sends warriors to be certain of your destruction." As he spoke, Teal'c was looking around him at the control room, at the personnel, trying to understand a world as alien to him as Chulak was to them. "They will be crushed against your iris."

"Men you led," Daniel reminded him cautiously, trying not to judge Teal'c by his own standards.

Teal'c did not take offence. "It is the way of all Jaffa to sacrifice. Countless millions have died in honourable service of their false gods. More will die in the fight to free them from slavery. The Goa'uld will not willingly or easily yield what they believe is theirs."

"Do our lives have any meaning to the Goa'uld? Are humans, I don't know how to put this, real to them? Thinking, feeling beings?"

Teal'c didn't rush to answer and wasn't fazed by the far from discreet attention everyone in the control room was now directing his way. "Human or Jaffa, we are a necessary means to a desired end," he said at last. "We live only to serve."

"So you chose to ally yourself with us because we represent the best chance your people have of winning their freedom?" Daniel was consciously pitching his questions to their interested audience.

Teal'c inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"If an opportunity had presented itself sooner?"

"I would have taken it."

"Your teacher Bra'tac told us that we couldn't possibly know the substance or the sum of his regrets," Daniel mused.

"He was correct."

"You do understand our military might decide the best way to deal with Apophis is to send our own weapon of mass destruction through the Stargate?" Daniel informed him, painfully direct about it.

"Dr. Jackson!" General Hammond reprimanded him sharply.

Teal'c stared rigidly ahead. Daniel thought he saw the man swallow.

"I understand," Teal'c said slowly.

"Of course, that would be an incalculably huge mistake on our part," Daniel went blithely on, determined to make his point so clear and so hard no one could argue it, not here, and certainly not in Washington. "For every single Goa'uld there must be, I dunno, millions of Jaffa."

"Indeed."

"If those millions of Jaffa see us as their best hope of attaining freedom from the Goa'uld some day, then we're going to find allies and fifth columnists wherever we go, get help where we least expect it."

Leaning casually against the deactivated self-destruct countdown, Jack looked as if he were trying not to laugh.

"The numbers of those Jaffa rebels will grow in time," Daniel happily joined another dot on the strategic map. "But if we were to murder millions of innocent men, women and children, human and Jaffa?"

"Then all Jaffa would rise and unite as one in the combined forces of the Goa'uld System Lords and dedicate their lives to eradicating the Tau'ri from existence," Teal'c responded superbly.

"Which, I'm guessing from their possession of vast fleets of ships, countless armies, advanced technology and weapons of mass destruction, wouldn't take the Goa'uld too long?" Daniel noted on a point of information, nodding sagely for the benefit of his audience. "So our best hope of survival at this point is to keep the Goa'uld System Lords fighting among themselves while we subvert their Jaffa armies and human slaves, their power base, right out from under them?"

"It is perhaps your only hope," Teal'c responded in measured, thoughtful tones. He was rather...impressive.

It occurred to Daniel that possibly of more immediate concern was what the military might think to do with, or more importantly, to Teal'c. He was their first live alien. This simple fact might raise all kinds of issues and concerns among the unimaginative.

Daniel wasn't about to permit any response to Teal'c's presence among them that involved medical procedures or other forms of experimentation.

"You and Master Bra'tac are close, right?"

"He is my teacher," Teal'c said proudly, both his face and his tone warming noticeably. "And the strongest warrior among us."

"I saw for myself how he's revered among the Jaffa warriors. His word must carry a lot of weight with them."

"He is our greatest hope to unite all Jaffa in the battle for freedom."

"And since Master Bra'tac gave you over to our care, you're our only connection to him and to all those Jaffa we're hoping to lure over to our side when the Goa'uld get nasty."

"You are incorrect in your assumption," Teal'c corrected him mildly. "Master Bra'tac gave the warriors of the Tau'ri over to my care."

Daniel tried, not very hard, to hide his smile. "Uh, thank you for the clarification, Teal'c. The point is, Master Bra'tac would take it very badly if anything, um, unpleasant were to happen to you or if you were treated in any way like a subject of scientific interest while you – sorry - we were in your care? And instead of using his influence with the Jaffa warriors for us, he would use it against us?"

Teal'c, who was anything but a fool, bowed eloquently.

"You're good," Ferretti praised Daniel judiciously, one individualistic, disruptive influence to another.

"Thank you for your comprehensive analysis of the tactical situation, Dr. Jackson," Hammond said somewhat sarcastically.

"Just one more question, General?"

Daniel smiled sweetly at an exceedingly suspicious Hammond while Jack waited expectantly for him to push his luck. Daniel was loathe to disappoint.

"When do we get Teal'c measured for his uniform?"

Teal'c looked around the grim grey room assigned to him, containing only a cot, a table and chairs, plus a severely functional stainless steel toilet and washbasin.

"Am I your prisoner?" he asked of Jack and Daniel.

"Not if we can help it," Daniel said honestly.

"For now," Jack amended, more realist than idealist. "You didn't save the lives of my team or come over to our side to be used as any kind of guinea pig by our military or scientists, a fact Daniel here made abundantly clear."

Teal'c tilted his head in Daniel's direction. "You have not given me your name."

"Oh!" Daniel looked surprised. "I'm Daniel. Daniel Jackson."

"I thank you for your efforts on my behalf, DanielJackson," Teal'c said formally.

Daniel blushed, scuffed a foot and looked at Jack as if it were specifically his fault nice things were unexpectedly happening. He had this blind spot about the nice things mostly being self-inflicted.

"The thing is, Teal'c," Jack explained patiently, "We've been all alone in our little corner of the galaxy for a while and I think the people I work for just need to get to know you a little better."

"We're asking a lot of one another just now," Daniel agreed. "You've placed a lot of trust in us by saving our lives and joining with us, and you're asking us to place a lot of trust in you by getting into this fight against the Goa'uld with you."

"It is through our actions that trust will in time be earned," Teal'c said decidedly.

"You're my kind of man," Jack said enthusiastically, clapping him on the arm, only slightly dampened when Teal'c looked particularly bland and uncommunicative.

"I have observed that others of the Tau'ri are afraid of me. Why are O'Neill and DanielJackson not afraid?" Teal'c enquired.

"Humans tend to be a little bit afraid of anything or anyone different from them," Daniel explained, knowing how disappointing humanity could be, especially when stacked up against Teal'c's unstinting self-sacrifice. "That's kind of our definition of alien. I promise you it's not personal. They just need time to get used to you."

"A lot of them are scared of Daniel too," Jack felt compelled to share. "He's as different as they come."

"In what way?" Teal'c wanted to know.

They were definitely going to have to work on Teal'c's sense of humour. It seemed to have been removed when the snake went in.

"I'm a scholar, a historian." Daniel was being extra nice to Teal'c, which was in marked contrast to the cold shoulder he'd just turned to Jack. "The others you've met are military. Warriors."

"A scribe?" Teal'c hazarded.

"Yes. If you like." Daniel perked up alarmingly. "Which reminds me that I wanted to ask you how it is you come to speak English?"

"Huh?" English? Jeez, when Jack thought about it, Teal'c had been talking the talk the whole damn time and he hadn't even noticed.

"Your people and mine haven't met for thousands of years, yet we each speak the same language," Daniel explained excitedly. "Until today, I thought the language had developed here on Earth, but now I'm not so sure. English as a language is traditionally associated with a country where ancient circles of standing stones were found, much like the one on Chulak. Am I the only one to see a connection?"

Jack would have loved this to be a rhetorical question, but he guessed his evenings were going to be filled for some time to come with excited linguistic speculation to which he would be required to fully contribute if he expected Daniel to be equally forthcoming in other arenas of fun, mutual activity.

"See?" he told Teal'c resignedly. "Different."

"Indeed."

"I do have a theory about the stone circles," Daniel explained in injured tones. "It relates to the Stargate and I'd love to..."

"I must meditate now," Teal'c said instantly, sinking gracefully to the floor and closing his eyes for added emphasis.

Jack could only dream.

"I'm going to go see Sam now," Daniel decided, taking this fairly well.

"You do that," Jack said kindly.

"And so are you." If this was a negotiable position, Daniel wasn't letting on. In fact, he resorted to excessive use of force. "We'll be along to see you later," Daniel promised Teal'c in a friendly way as he hooked Jack out of the room. "Probably after the next attack."

"Apophis is like Old Faithful," Jack grinned as he closed the door behind them. "Every hour on the hour he's knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. I'm going to miss him when he finally wises up."

"Since he seems equally as hampered by arrogant, egotistical stupidity as Seth, I imagine it's going to be a long wait."

"Still worried about the giraffes in the zoo?" Jack asked sympathetically.

This was Daniel's first experience of the base auto-destruct, and being Daniel, he was worrying about it in tangents. Building Stargate Command under a mountain that was clearly visible from all over Colorado Springs, crawling with tourists visiting innumerable tourist attractions, desirable real estate, a world class hotel, a golf course, a national park, several porn joints, dodgy motels and a zoo which had giraffes, was asking for tangential trouble.

"Oh, leave me alone!"

Jack meekly followed his indignant other half into the Infirmary, where they found Janet Fraiser black and blue and Sam Carter just plain blue.

"Daniel, Colonel O'Neill," she greeted them wanly.

"How's the shoulder, Carter?" Jack asked.

"Good," Fraiser croaked.

"Shouldn't you be in one of those beds?" Jack winced, eyeing her livid throat.

"Feels worse than it looks," Fraiser assured him, deadpan.

"Me too," Carter joked but kind of meant it too. Hansen had hurt her far more deeply than just her physical injury

"You gave back the ring, Sam," Daniel told her compassionately. "You made the choice to break off your engagement to Hansen."

"Don't beat yourself up for being loyal, Carter," Jack advised straight-forwardly. "You didn’t quit on Hansen until all your other choices were taken away. That's not a bad thing and God knows, it's a rare enough quality. You didn't know who Hansen was at the core and you are not responsible for him."

"Thank you," she said shakily. There was a book on her bed, a bible. "He used to carry this with him. I don't know if I ever really believed he was looking for God but if he was, if that search for meaning and purpose was sincere, then what happened to him..."

Had to be the worst irony.

It wasn't enough Hansen had lost himself in that search and his personality had been obliterated by a false god, not nearly payment enough for what he'd done to Daniel, but Jack had kept his promise to himself; Hansen had died at his hand. He found he could be content with that.

"How's Teal'c?" Carter asked them, making a real effort to snap herself out of her depression.

"Jack has recommended to General Hammond that Teal'c be allowed to join SG-1," Daniel said brightly, his approval apparent.

Carter had to think about the implications of this but she was as sharp as they came and Jack was confident she would come around. "After the demolition job Daniel just did on military intelligence, or lack thereof, I think we'll get our fourth," he grinned confidently.

Carter smiled genuinely at this. She was too beat and sore to tease or make a joke of it, but she took Daniel's hand in hers and managed to make him blush and look severely embarrassed. "I'm looking forward to getting to know Teal'c," she said softly, making the effort for her teammate.

Loyalty was Carter's best quality. Maybe Jack was lousy at showing it, but he did value it in her. She'd proven a lot to him and to herself when she took that shot at Hansen, if only she would see it.

"Teal'c thinks Goa'uld technology is magic," Daniel made sure to share.

Carter's face fell.

"Ignore him," Jack sneered, making the effort for once to include her in the humour. "Daniel just wants you out of the way for as long as possible because he has ten questions for every one of yours and he wants his answers first."

He cynically eyed both his sneaky, exhaustively inquisitive scientists.

"By the time you two are done with Teal'c, the poor sonovabitch will wish military intelligence had got him."

"Why is it our sex life seems to consist mostly of crushing ourselves into confined spaces expressly designed by the Air Force to discourage illicitly interactive nocturnal activities?" Daniel bitched, scowling around at their depressing on-base accommodations.

"I can't say no?" Harsh, but the truth as Jack saw it.

Currently crushed quite comfortably between the wall and a pretty hard place, Daniel smiled, wrapped a possessive leg around Jack's, cuddled him closer and generally made a warm, pleasing fuss over him.

"How long do we have?" Daniel wondered.

"Not long enough," Jack sighed. The two of them were literally nose to nose and Daniel's agenda was fairly transparent. "The end of the world is just about nigh."

"Shouldn't we be going out with a bang?" Daniel shimmied suggestively.

"We might do, if I don't get out of bed to input that command code."

Daniel's jokiness faded and his fingers needed to find Jack's face. They kissed softly, because it wasn't about sex just now.

Their Stargate was open to exploration but it had also brought a fight to their door. Daniel's archaeological playground was in the middle of a war zone and Jack's threat assessment depended on intelligence gleaned from books and texts hundreds and thousands of years old in languages no one knew better than this man.

There had been a place for each of them before, but now Jack was feeling they were truly in it together.

"You doing okay?" Jack asked, letting his concern show.

"I have far more questions than answers on every conceivable level from the intellectual to the emotional, and new problems are piling up around us. A lot of this is absolutely wonderful, much, much more than I could ever dream or imagine was possible for me. But what scares me is that I'm not used to this responsibility," Daniel admitted bashfully. "That lives can depend on my judgement."

"Can't avoid it." It wasn't necessary for Jack to cushion blows. It wasn't welcome. Daniel only wanted the truth from him. "Not if you want the Stargate."

"And you can't avoid the meaning of life stuff," Daniel retorted. "Not if you want the Stargate. Which means you have to help me out as much as I help you."

Jack wanted to go through the gate almost as much as he wanted Daniel.

He wasn't a one to talk of dreams coming true or even to think in those terms, but it was true just the same.

Everything Jack thought he knew about himself and his job was being changed by the minute and the hour because of the Stargate. He'd so rarely had the chance to get into a clean fight, he could hardly trust it now. But fighting to free slaves from their false gods was about as clean as it got.

If Daniel was behind the fight, behind Jack, it was good and he was clear. And all that was asked of him in return was that he listen and respect.

He could do that. He could do every good thing for Daniel.

"Do you want to talk?" Jack offered, knowing they had to work through everything they'd been through with Hansen before Daniel could really let it go.

"I'm bone-tired and I want to leave all our problems on the other side of that door. Can it be just this for now? Just us?" Dreamily stroking Jack's face, Daniel was smiling at him with a kind of gentle wonder.

In Jack's dark moments, when he ached and seethed in his anger and his doubts, he could see this trusting look on Daniel's face and know he'd got at least one thing right.

Daniel was meant to be with him.

Jack O'Neill, who'd hurt most of the people he'd known, brought only good to Daniel Jackson. There was no explaining it, just as there was no explaining why Daniel had opened up to Jack and Jack alone, him of all people.

As wrong as they should be by any measure they knew, they were good together and there was no life for them apart.

They loved.

FINIS

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